The Week in Chess

Hikaru Nakamura won the first mini-match of the final of the Lindores Abbey Rapid Challenge 2.5-1.5 against Daniil Dubov.

As so often in this format the first game of the day set the tone. Dubov got in some nice preparation in the Queen's Gambit 5.Bf4 line that has been played so often against Nakamura in this event but from an edge at move 16 Dubov embarked on the wrong plan with 17.b5 and was a pawn down struggling to save the game by move 24. Even then 29.Qb5? was the real final mistake after which there was no saving the game, before that he had reasonable saving chances. The second game saw Dubov roll out his speciality for this event the Philidor defence but Nakamura put Dubov on the back foot, there was a break in play with server problems that didn't help and Dubov couldn't hold the endgame. Nakamura played rather poorly in the third game missing a number of chances to play better, afterwards he was particularly scathing about 29.f4 and Dubov brought home the full point in 44 moves. There was no fairly tale for Dubov in the final game, he did get a slightly better position with black but Nakamura reacted energetically with a kingside attack which got him the draw he needed.

Dubov must win the second mini-match tomorrow to take this tie into the final day.