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Home » Nakamura wins 1st ICC Open

The Internet Chess Club organised their first open competition with three qualifiers followed by a knockout final. Hikaru Nakamura took the time to compete and was a reasonably convincing winner although he was pushed in the final. Malcolm Pein takes a look.

Hikaru Nakamura has risen to number six on the live world rankings and ascribes his success, in part, to playing less speed chess on the internet. The US number one returned to his first love at the weekend and won the inaugural Internet Chess Club Open on chessclub.com. Players had three minutes for the whole game.

After four hard fought qualifiers, Nakamura reached theeight-player knockout final and defeated GM Robert Hovhannisyan of Armenia and American IM Levon Altounian. In the final, Nakamura tied 3-3 with another Armenian GM Hrair Simonian and had to ride his luck a little to win a to a two-game tiebreaker.

Nakamura played from Madrid as he is en route to Bazna for an elite tournament where he will face Magnus Carlsen, Vasily Ivanchuk, Sergey Karjakin, Teimour Radjabov and Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu.

2,216 ICC members took part in the competition and played for $3,500 in prize money which included class prizes for those rated under 2200, 2000, 1800 and 1600.

Nakamura's ICC name is CapilanoBridge, Albert is IM Levon Altounian.

Levon Altounian - Hikaru Nakamura

ICC 3 minute game

Petroff Defence

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 d6 4.Nc4 Nxe4 5.d4 d5 6.Ne3 Be7 7.Nd2 0-0 8.Bd3 Nxd2 9.Bxd2 g6

(9...c6 10.Qh5 g6 11.Qh6?? Bg5 we will see that theme again today)

10.h4!

(An instinctive reaction at Blitz and objectively sound as well)

10...Bxh4?! 11.Qf3 c6 12.0-0-0 Bg5 13.Rh2 Nd7 14.Rdh1 h6

(14...h5 15.Rxh5 gxh5 16.Qxh5 mates)

Hikaru Nakamura

Levon Altounian

Position after 14...h6

15.Rxh6! Bxh6 16.Rxh6 Nf6 17.Qg3 Ne4 18.Bxe4 dxe4

(All Black's pieces are on the back row - the game is lost)

19.Bc3 Kg7 20.Qh2 Kf6

(Nakamura has a sense of humour in defeat)

21.Qe5# 1-0

Today's puzzle.

ARMCOMPOSER is GM Robert Hovhannisyan, one of the highest rated players on ICC at 3249. Nakamura is 3394.

Hikaru Nakamura

Robert Hovhannisyan

Nakamura has just played 39...Kd4 and now 40.Rd6+ Ke3 41.Nxc3 Rg8! probably did not appeal to White. Does he have time to take the knight and meet 40.Rxg6 c2 with 41.Kf2 intending Rd6 mate?

Nakamura has just played 39...Kd4 and now 40.Rd6+ Ke3 41.Nxc3 Rg8! probably did not appeal to White. Does he have time to take the knight and meet 40.Rxg6 c2 with 41.Kf2 intending Rd6 mate?

Answer: No, the game ended

40.Rxg6 c2 41.Kf2 Rd8!

(Not 41...c3 42.Rd6+ Kc4 43.Rc6+ Kb3 44.Rxc3+ Kb2 45.g4 c1Q 46.Rxc1 Kxc1 47.g5)

42.Rg8 Rxg8 0-1

An imaginative but flawed combination decided the final

Hrair Simonian - Nakamura

Ruy Lopez Berlin

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6 4.0-0 Nxe4 5.Re1 Nd6 6.Nxe5 Nxe5 7.Rxe5+ Be7 8.Bd3 0-0 9.Nc3 Ne8 10.b3 c6 11.Bb2 Bf6 12.Re1 d5 13.Qf3 Nc7 14.Re2 Ne6 15.Rae1? Nd4 16.Qh5 g6 17.Qh6 Nxe2+ 18.Rxe2 Bg5 19.Nxd5 Bxh6 20.Ne7+ Qxe7

(Had this not been possible, White's combination would have won the brilliancy prize, instead he suffers ruinous material loss)

21.Rxe7 Bg5 22.Re2 0-1