Rapid Chess Championship Week 5: Nakamura Bests Aronian

So was able to demonstrate great preparation, taking advantage of a misplaced a7-rook against Dubov in a Sicilian Kan miniature. 21 moves were all So needed after winning a clean pawn and playing a timely f-pawn break, ripping open the kingside, and highlighting the dark-squared weaknesses around Black’s lonely king.

—GM Aman Hambleton

The only quarterfinal match that almost went the distance was between Nakamura and the reigning World Blitz Chess Champion Vachier-Lagrave. Nakamura’s match strategy was made clear after brief draws in both their rapid and blitz encounters.

Nakamura must have fancied his chances in the bullet tiebreaker and never gave up the one-pawn advantage he garnered, despite “creative defense,” as commentator Belenkaya put it, from Vachier-Lagrave. 

In the last quarterfinal of the day, Kamsky came to fight with the black pieces against the RCC leaderboard frontrunner Caruana, playing the rarely seen Jaenisch Gambit and certainly creating the kinds of imbalances he was seeking.

Caruana was calm and collected amid the complications and managed to maneuver his minor pieces better than his opponent to gain some initiative in the middlegame. Kamsky, however, found some key resources to liquidate into a tablebase-drawn endgame. The endgame was still filled with ideas for White, though, and anything short of absolute precision would prove costly for Black.

Alas, time pressure got to Kamsky, and he eventually succumbed to Caruana after 63 moves.

Aronian’s imperious form continued into his semifinal, where he dispatched Chess960 World Champion So by virtue of a surprise tactic to take advantage of the fact that Black’s queen had wandered too far from the king.

Caruana would not prove as fortunate in the semifinals this week, as Nakamura bested him in a thrilling match that was taken to the bullet portion. After a quiet draw in their sole rapid game, the blitz tiebreak brought the match to life and Nakamura took a page out of Kamsky’s book, meaning that for the second time today, Caruana had to face the Jaenisch Gambit.

The bullet tiebreaker marked yet another hard-fought victory for Nakamura where both players seemed to tango on the edge of a cliff. The nature of bullet chess reared its tumultuous head in this instance and Caruana was stunned to lose his knight, the game, and the match after a blunder in time pressure.

The final between Aronian and Nakamura was decided in the first game after an interesting version of the Giuoco Piano, Pianissimo Variation, being the weapon of choice for the winner of last week’s knockout. Aronian adopted a unique defensive structure on the kingside, allowing his opponent to gain space and attack early in the middlegame.

On his stream, Nakamura cited tiredness as the reason why he missed several winning combinations. However, he still prevailed in an endgame that proved too tricky for Aronian with fewer than 10 seconds on the clock.

Standings, Results, Prizes