America’s Hikaru Nakamura has been the star turn in the London Classic at Olympia which reaches its final rounds this weekend. The US No1 won the 400-player rapid (one-hour games) with a 9.5/10 total, beating his main rivals in individual encounters.
Now the elite top six grandmasters, among them the England No1, Michael Adams, are competing in a single-round all-play-all. Rounds start at 2pm on Saturdayand are live and free online at www.londonchessclassic.com.
Nakamura has been spurred on by the global body Fide’s announcement that Magnus Carlsen’s next defence of his world title will be staged in the US in 2016.
The venue is stated as New York or Los Angeles but the billionaire Rex Sinquefield, who has created a chess Mecca in his home city, St Louis, could outbid either of them and is a fan of Nakamura, who recently defeated the world No5, Levon Aronian, in a match there.
Fabiano Caruana, the world No2, is the favourite to become Carlsen’s next challenger and there has been speculation that the 22-year-old, who has dual nationality, could opt to return to the country of his childhood. But recently Caruana and his family were invited to a meeting with Italian Olympic officials, after which he said that he has no current plans to go back to the US.
Caruana’s form has dipped lately after his brilliant 9/10 victory at St Louis this summer and in Wednesday’s opening round of the London Classic he lost to Adams.
Nakamura’s target now is to become one of the eight candidates who will compete in 2015 to be Carlsen’s official challenger.
He is No9 in the world, too low to qualify by rating, and is only on the borderline for one of the two Grand Prix candidates places. He also lost to Russia’s Vlad Kramnik in Thursday’s second round of the Classic.
But his trump is that the host country can nominate a wild card and, although the young former Filipino Wesley So is also in the world top 10, Nakamura has vastly greater experience.
Carlsen is famous for his nondescript openings aiming at positions where he feels more comfortable than his opponent, and Nakamura has recently adopted his own variation of that strategy. In this game from the London Classic Blitz, 1 d4 and 2 Bf4 is harmless, but it sparked defensive errors.
Anand could equalise by 14...g5 and exchanging bishops, while,later 22...Be5! and 25...Re8! were better defences. At the end, White will gain material by f3 and his Qg4 mating threat.
Hikaru Nakamura v Vishy Anand
1 d4 Nf6 2 Bf4 d5 3 e3 e6 4 c4 Be7 5 Nc3 O-O 6 Nf3 b6 7 Bd3 Bb7 8 O-O dxc4 9 Bxc4 Nbd7 10 Qe2 a6 11 Rfd1 b5 12 Bd3 Bd6 13 Bg5 h6 14 Bh4 c5? 15 Ne4 Bxe4 16 Bxe4 Ra7 17 dxc5 Nxc5 18 Bc2 Rd7 19 b4 Nb7 20 a4 g5 21 Nxg5!? hxg5 22 Bxg5 Be7? 23 axb5 axb5 24 Qf3 Nd6 25 Qh3 Nde4? 26 Bh6 1-0
The strangest opening novelty in London was by Anish Giri. The world No7 began three of his rapid games by 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Nc3 Nf6 4 h3!? Bb4 5 Bd3!? which looks like novice play.
The Dutchman used it to score 2.5/3 against Caruana, Adams and Vlad Kramnik. A one-off for the occasion or a new deep strategy? Time will tell.
3368 1...Qd8! wins. The threat is Nxd4 2 Qxd4 Bxh2+. The white knight cannot move due to Bxh2+ while, if 2 Be3 Bc5 with a triple attack on d4, 1...Qd7? does not work because of 2 Qf5!
