The Week in Chess

Home » Chess News » Events » chess.com Speed Chess 2023

The finals of the chess.com Speed Chess took place Mon 4th to Fri 22nd September 2023. 16 players competed including Alireza Firouzja, Wesley So, Levon Aronianm, Ian Nepomniachtchi and MVL However it was last year's finalists Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura that met again.

Last year Carlsen got off to a poor start losing the 5m+1spm portion 6.5-2.5 and although he pulled close Nakamura had the upper hand throughout and infamously ran down the clock at the end to ensure victory. This year felt much closer with only a point in it in all three sections. Carlsen won the initial 5m+1spm section 5-4, Nakamura won the 3m+1spm 5-4 but it was Carlsen who triumphed in the Bullet 4.5-3.5 to win by a point 13.5-12.5.

Carlsen is the only player who can really challenge Nakamura in bullet and this year it decided the title in his favour. The course of the match was that Carlsen took an early lead of two points, the players then traded blows before Nakamura scored 5 unanswered wins between games 9 and 14. Carlsen recovered from this tilt to score three wins in four games. The bullet phase started with a win for Nakamura in game 19 but three unanswered wins for Carlsen in games 21, 22 and 24 putting him in charge giving him a two point lead with only a short time to go, Nakamura pulled one back and in a dramatic final game where Nakamura was close to getting the win he needed to continue the match he allowed a double rook sacrifice from Carlsen for the draw that decided the event.

vs

ChessTempo viewer

The Week in Chess Magazine

Send a £30 donation via Paypal and contact me via email (Email Mark Crowther - mdcrowth@btinternet.com) I'll send you an address for a cbv file of my personal copy of every issue of the games in one database. Over 3 million games.

Alternatively subscribe to donate £4 a month

Read about 25 years of TWIC.

TWIC 1537 22nd April 2024 - 6430 games

Read TWIC 1537

Download TWIC 1537 PGN

Download TWIC 1537 ChessBase