By Hikaru Nakamura on 5/23/2009 12:14 PM

Jaan Ehlvest (2606) - Hikaru Nakamura (2701) US Championship, Saint Louis 9.5.2009

1.Nf3 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.g3 b6 4.Bg2 Bb7 5.0-0 Be7 6.b3 0-0 7.Bb2 d5 8.e3 c5 9.Nc3 Nc6!? (Diagram 1)



This pretty much the starting position for the whole variation. However, despite being roughly equal, 9...Nbd7 was slightly easier to play.

10.cxd5 Nxd5 11.Nxd5 Qxd5 12.d4 Rad8 13.Ne5 (Diagram 2)



The past few moves have all been standard theory. However, here I slightly lose my head and played 13...Qxg2?! (13...Qd6 was slightly more sound. After 14.Qe2 Nxe5 15.Bxb7 Bf6 White is slightly better, but the position isn't particularly anything special. Another try is 14.Nd7 Qf5 15.e4 Qg5 16.h4 Qh6 17.Bc1 g5 with an unbalanced position. (Diagram 3)



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By Hikaru Nakamura on 5/22/2009 7:40 PM

Hikaru Nakamura (2701) - Alexander Shabalov (2569), US Championship Saint Louis 8.5.2009

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be2 e6 (Diagram 1)



7.0-0 Be7 8.a4 0-0 9.f4 Qc7 10.Be3!? (The main line here is 10.Kh1, but I saw that Karpov had played this before, so there cannot be anything wrong it either!) 10...b6 11.Bf3 Bb7 12.f5!? (Other interesting tries are 12.g4,12.Qe1 and 12.Qe2. Each of these variations has its own flavour to it, but to put it simply it is a matter of taste. 12...e5 13.Nb3 Nbd7 14.g4!? (14.Qe2 was tried by Anand rather unsuccessfully in the game Anand--Wojtkiewicz, GMA Baleares Open 1989 and continued 14...Rfe8 15.Rfd1 Rac8 16.Nd2 Nc5 17.Bf2 d5! 18.exd5 e4 19.Bxe4 Bd6 20.Qf3 Bxh2 with a very complicated middlegame.) 14...h6 15.h4 d5!? (Diagram 2)



16.exd5 e4 17.Bg2 Qg3 18.Qe1N (Previously,...

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By Hikaru Nakamura on 5/22/2009 8:12 AM

Good morning to everyone from nice sunny and hot White Plains, New York. I apologize to everyone that I was not able to blog yesterday, but I spent much of the afternoon and evening in New York City, and I completely crashed when I got home around 10 PM from exhaustion.

In this, the third and final installment of my experiences from the US Championship, I will recap the rest of the tournament from after I won round 9 to the closing ceremony. In the last blog, I left off after I won my game against GM Josh Friedel. Throughout this game, I had my eye on the Hess-Akobian game for obvious reasons. Unlike two of his other games in the tournament, I was pleased to see that Varuzhan found a way to avoid a losing position after 15 moves with Black for a change. I was especially optimistic about the game when I saw queens come off early as this would appear to very much play to his style. At the same time, it also meant that he'd avoid getting blown off the board like he did against Gata and me.

After my game finished, I went downstairs to the commentary room and gave a few comments relatively brief comments to Emil Sutovsky,Jennifer Shahade and Macauley Peterson. I do not know if the audio broadcast was archived or not, but it was hard for me to really be anything but slightly dazed due to the incredibly anti-climatic nature of the final game I played. In 2005 when I won, I had to grind a very complicated endgame against GM Ildar Ibragimov which went well into the fifth hour. This time around, with a short three hour game requiring very little effort it was hard to say much of anything. After I left the commentary room, I went outside and made a brief call to my parents before Kris&I went off to get some lunch at Culpepper's. About five or six minutes after we ordered food, I got several messages from people on my crackberry hearing that the game Hess-Akobian was drawn. In retrospect, I'm a little surprised I didn't start screaming at the top of my lungs considering how much this victory meant to me. After I gulfed down my food, I ran back to the club for the final interview which I believe is on the actual website of the Saint Louis Chess Club.

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By Hikaru Nakamura on 5/20/2009 8:42 PM

Sorry for not posting sooner, but in keeping with every day of this week thus far, I've been quite busy and when I'm not taking care of work, I am trying to enjoy some well deserved sleep. In case anyone from New York took time out of their evenings to check out the news, apparently CBS was very busy covering the Heart Walk in NYC so the piece did not actually air. However, I have been told that it will definitely air on the weekend for those who are still interested. Without further ado I will now pick up where I left off yesterday.

Round 5: Clash of The Titans

In round five I was paired against the top seed Gata Kamsky with White. Gata and I have been in constant competition ever since his return to chess. However, surprisingly, we have only played once despite playing in numerous tournaments together. The one time we played before was way back in 2004 shortly after his return to chess. We played in the Tuesday Night Masters which was a very strong event run by Greg Shahade and my good friend John...

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By Hikaru Nakamura on 5/19/2009 7:17 PM

As promised, I will attempt to finally write a blog characterizing my feelings and experiences from a truly remarkable event and probably the best I have played in many months. Although I would have liked to have blogged sooner, I was sleeping until close to noon today when I did an interview with the local New York area based WCBS area reporter Tony Aiello. The clip was supposed to have aired at 6 PM, but as it has not I assume it will be on the 11 PM news for those of you in the New York area.

I will attempt to recap this round by round and my feeling before/during/after. This should be particularly enlightening for the first few rounds as I did not comment either on Chess.FM or in the analysis room where GM Emil Sutovsky and WGM Jennifer Shahade both did a phenomenal job. However, before I get into the nitty gritty of the tournament itself it goes without saying that everyone associated with the Saint Louis Chess Club did a phenomenal job in the organization. I would like to take an opportunity to thank...

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By Hikaru Nakamura on 5/18/2009 6:47 PM

Good evening to everyone out there. Unfortunately, this will not be the blog in which I chronicle my run during the championships. Having said that, I am still quite tired from a long 48 hours and just arrived back in New York, so everyone has to wait one more day before I write an actual blog. However, I would like to thank everyone for the well wishes from all forums.

By Hikaru Nakamura on 5/16/2009 8:42 AM

This is just going to be a very short blog since I need to continue preparing for a very critical round 8 game against IM Michael Brooks later today. Overall, I've been satisfied with my results and today the final stretch begins. After the tournament I'll definitely add a few blogs with analysis from my games, but I have been so focused on the tournament thus far that any and all distractions have been avoided.

By Hikaru Nakamura on 5/4/2009 12:09 AM

WESTERN CONFERENCE SEMIFINALS

                                             VS.               

(65-17) 1st Pacific                                                  (53-29) 2nd Southwest

Point Guard: When it comes to point guard both teams have solid starters here with Derek Fisher for the Lakers and Aaron Brooks for the Rockets. While both have contributed to their teams success, only Brooksplayed an integral role in the Rockets first round success. During the first round series against the Utah Jazz, Fisher averaged a solid 29 minutes but only 9.2 points and 3 assists. For the Rockets, Brooks averaged 15.3 points and with 4.3 assists in 31.3 minutes. Although the stats are highly favourable for the Rockets in this particular category, Fisher's playoff experience combined with his big shot ability including the oh so sweet three...

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By Hikaru Nakamura on 5/3/2009 5:55 PM

Aleksander Delchev (2647) - Hikaru Nakamura (2699), French League (7) 3.5.2009

1.e4 d6 2.d4 g6 3.Be3 Bg7 4.Nc3 a6 5.f4!? b5 6.Bd3 Bb7 7.Nf3 Nd7 8.e5 c5!? 9.Be4 (diagram)



9...Qc8 10.Bxb7 Qxb7 11.dxc5 dxe5!? (According to GM Finkel Black is supposed to play 11...dxc5 however, after 12. Qd5 Qxd5 13.Nxd5 Rc8 14.0-0-0 Nh6 15.Rhe1 White has a big advantage. However, as my game proves the variations are not so clear after 11...dxe5.) 12.Qd5! (diagram)



12...Qxd5 13.Nxd5 Rc8 14.Nb6 Nxb6 15.cxb6 Nf6 (15...e4 was featured in the game Grischuk-Bacrot, Fide Grand Prix Dubai 2002 but after 16.Ne5 Bxe5 17.fxe5 e6 18.Bc5! Ne7 19.Bd6 Bacrot would resign within ten moves.) 16.0-0-0 Ng4 17.b7 (17.Rhe1 was played in the game Mortensen-Hillarp Persson, Denmark 2003. But after 17...Nxe3 18.Rxe3 Bh6! 19.Ra3 Bxf4+ 20.Kb1 e4 21.Nd4 Rd8 white was completely lost.) 17...Rb8 18.Bb6 (I also considered the following variations. A) 18...0-0 19. Rd7 Nf6 20. Rhd1 Nxd7 21.Rxd7 Bh6 22.Kd1! Bxf4 23.g3 e4 24.gxf4 exf3 25.Ke1 f6 26.Kf2 Kf7 27.Bc5 Rfe8 28.Kxf3 Ke6 29.Rc7 to be extremely unpleasant. B) 18...e6 19.h3! Nf6 {19...Rxb7? 20.Rd8 Ke7 21.Rxh8 Bxh8 22.Bc5 winning a piece} 20.Rd8 Ke7 21.Nxe5! Rhxd8 22.Nc6 Kd7 23.Nxd8 Nd5 24.Rd1 to be completely winning for White.) 18...f6 19.Rd8 (19.h3 was also possible however, White fails to obtain any advantage after 19...Rxb7 20.Rd8 Kf7 21.Rxh8 Bxh8 22.hxg4 Rxb6 23.Rxh7 Bg7 24.fxe5 fxe5 with approximate equality.) 19...Kf7 20.Rd7 (diagram)

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By Hikaru Nakamura on 5/2/2009 7:46 PM

Hikaru Nakamura (2699) - Sebastian Maze (2579), French League (6) 2.5.2009

1.g3 Nf6 2.Bg2 d5 3.d3 Bf5 4.c4 c6 5.Qb3 (Diagram 1)



An interesting position. Although this still remains far from clear, it is most certainly not what my opponent was expecting when he chose to go for 3...Bf5 in the first place. I could have chosen other more peaceful options, but I felt like going right for complications.

5...Bc8 6.cxd5 cxd5 7.Nc3 e6 8.e4 dxe4 9.dxe4 Nc6 10. Nge2 (10.Nf3 Qd3 is highly problematic for me.)  Bc5 11.0-0 0-0 12.Na4 Be7 13.Rd1 Qa5 (13...Qc7 14.Bg5 was still a small advantage for White as well.) 14.Bd2 Qa6 15.Nac3 e5 16.Bf1 (Diagram 2)



16...Qb6 (16...Be6 17.Nd5 led to complications, 16...Bg4 17.h3! Bf3 18.Nb5 was better for White.) 17.Qxb6 axb6 18.Bg5 Bg4 19.h3 Bxe2 20.Bxe2 Nd4 21.Bxf6 Bxf6 22.Bg4...

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