Sunday, February 02, 2014

"Nakamura doesn't usually get these kinds of chances against me"

Magnus "The Great" prevailed !

Ok that what happens last night when two of chess giant meet in round 3 at  the Zurich Chess Challange 2014.

The clash between the world champion and world no.  1 - Magnus Carlsen against world no.7 - Hikaru Nakamura was highly waited.


Nakamura - a fierce and aggressive player is among a few players who i personally believe can stop Carlsen domination among current chess elite. Although Nakamura has a negative score so far against Carlsen, playing white last night , he managed to have  a totally winning position against the world no.1 but unfortunately, after dominating the game for so long, he could not find the right continuation to deliver the killer punch and instead  the mighty Carlsen keep finding resources to unbalanced the position and at the end, he managed to turn the table.

Hikaru Nakamura - Magnus Carlsen
Round 3, Zurich Chess Challange, 2.2.2014

White to move


37.d6? - the correct and winning move is 37.Qf1! ( leaving the h-file open for the rook and attacking the knight on c4 with a tempo)   37...b5 38.Rxh7!! the killer jab that would finish the game brilliantly for Nakamura!

As mentioned by Carlsen after the game, Nakamura actually can play for a draw but i think it is not easy to switch your mode from  having a totally winning position right from the start to the middlegame and after a few lapse, suddenly you have to play for a draw.

At the post game commentary , Carlsen  pointed out that "Nakamura doesn't usually get these kinds of chances against me". - perhaps it sound so arrogant you think but as a World Champ,  i think he have "the right" to said it!

You can watch the annotated game here and the live video here

 By the way, Magnus means great in Latin.  Check the  meaning here

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Thirdly, "Magnus the Good" was a great Viking king as well! :-)