Schacksnack

GM Hikaru Nakamura, U.S.A. (2905) makes a strong impression in London and proved again that he is at least the second best player in the world when it comes to the faster time limits. Recently he beat the world class player GM Levon Aronian, Armenia, in the deciding blitz match convincingly. His winning strategy was to play practically and relatively good moves pretty fast. Aronian could not handle the required pace of the game and played too slowly.  He managed to attain very good positions but in the end they were ruined in the deciding time scrabble. (Aronian vs Nakamura Blitz)

Nakamura won the LCC Rapidplay very convincingly – 9,5/10! An extraordinary strong result considering the mighty opposition with superstars like GM Fabiano Caruana, GM Viswanathan Anand, GM Anish Giri, GM Vladimir Kramnik and many others. Now we are waiting for a  ”world championship match” to be arranged between the reigning world champion Magnus Carlsen, Norway and Nakamura with this specific time limit.

GM Anish Giri, Netherlands (2674) who developed his play very fast recently, and may be a future world championship contender, finished in second place with 8,5/10. Ten grandmasters shared third to twelfth place with 8/10. The only one player who participated from Sweden, GM Jonny Hector (2485), scored the reasonable 6/10 which gave him the 79th placement. (Complete results) There is more information about all the arrangements at londonchessclassic.com.

GM Hikaru Nakamura, U.S.A., to the left surely seems to be the second best blitz and rapid player in the world or maybe he is even the best? (Photo: Thomas Engqvist, Bilbao 2014)