The Week in Chess

Hikaru Nakamura won an Armageddon tie-break against Magnus Carlsen to progress to the final of hte Lindores Abbey Rapid Challenge where he plays Daniil Dubov. Nakamura chose black and needed a draw and when the players got just below 2 minutes Nakamura played 36.Qe5, Carlsen's best was 37.Bf7, 37.Nxc6 was also good, 37.Nb3 was less good and had to be followed by 38.Bf1, with all the logic and momentum gone Carlsen dropped large amounts of material shortly afterwards.

The earlier rapid games saw Carlsen play a Four Knights where theory to a draw is pretty well known and although Nakamura was forced to be accurate on a couple of occasions he was up to the task. In game two in a highly theoretical Open Spanish Nakamura knew more theory than Carlsen who was way behind on the clock, 29.Rd8? loses (29.Rc8 saves) and that was that. In game three Nakamura felt he was never in the game and was quickly dispatched by Carlsen, a quietish, the final rapid game setting up the Armageddon finish was a quiet draw.

"It's great to beat Magnus, at least one time I found a way, I'm pretty happy."

Nakamura thought Carlsen was a bit off today just a bit slow on the clock and missing a few key points and it's hard to argue with that.

Hikaru Nakamura vs Daniil Dubov 1st-3rd June 2020 3pm start.