The Armenian thus took solo first by a full point and with a 2833 performance. He won five, lost one — to young Karjakin — and drew seven. A point behind were Leko and Akopian who finished in a tie for second-third places. The rest of the standings: Grischuk, Bacrot, fourth-fifth; Gelfand, Alekseev, sixth-seventh; Kamsky, Svidler, Karjakin, Mamedyarov, eighth-11th; Ivanchuk, Kasimdzhanov and Eljanov, 12th-14th.
Game of the week. Our annotator, GM Lubosh Kavalek, recently pointed out that America’s best chess hope, 21-year-old Hikaru Nakamura, is apparently avoiding the elite events in Europe and would rather roam the mainland to play in open tournaments, often against amateurs.
Hiraku, says Kavalek, is “a great fighter without short draws on his resume — he is inventive, fast and almost unbeatable in blitz games.” But in April, he did poorly in two North American events — the Foxwoods Open and the Toronto Open.
It is, however, too early to write off this former prodigy as the following game clearly shows.
White: GM Hiraku Nakamura (2701)
Black: FM Michael Barron (2252)
Leningrad Dutch
Toronto Open 2009
1.d4 f5 2.c4 Nf6 3.Nc3 g6 4.h4!? (Bent Larsen, who loved engaging his rook pawns, would approve of the ramming attack.) 4…Bg7 5.h5! Nxh5 6.e4! (White is ready to sacrifice the exchange to chase the black king, but he can’t do it right the way. After 6.Rxh5 gxh5 7.e4 0-0!, black is fine.) 6…fxe4 (Defending with 6…e6 leads to a disaster after 7.exf5 exf5 8.Rxh5! gxh5 9.Qxh5+ Kf8 10.Nd5!, threatening 11.Qxf5+ Kg8 12.Bg5 Qe8+ 13.Ne7+ winning. In the game Krush-Esserman played last December at the Berkeley International, white had great compensation for the pawn after 6…Nf6 7.exf5 gxf5 8.Bg5 e6 9.Qd2 Qe7 10.0-0-0 d6 11.Nd5! and won in 23 moves.) 7.Rxh5! gxh5 8.Qxh5+ Kf8 9.Bh6 (Exchanging black’s only active piece.) 9…Bxh6?! (Making it easy for white, but even after 9…d6 10.Nxe4 black will have a tough time.) 10.Qxh6+ Kg8 11.Qg5+ Kf7 12.Nxe4 (Nakamura’s novelty, paving the way for the other pieces.) 12…Qg8 (After 12…d6 13.Be2 Qg8 14.Bh5+ Kf8 15.Qf4+ Kg7 16.Qh4 Kf8 17.Nf3 the white pieces are ready for action.) 13.Qf4+ Ke8 14.Qxc7 Nc6 (After 14…Na6 15.Qe5 Kd8 16.Ng5 Ke8 17.c5! Nb4 18.Bc4! Nc6! 19.Bf7+ Kf8 20.Qf4 Qg7 21.0-0-0 Qf6 22.Qg3, threatening to win with 23.Nxh7+.) 15.0-0-0 Qg6 16.Re1! (Threatening 17.Nd6+.) 16…Kf7 17.d5 Nb4 (After 17…Nd4 18.Qe5 Qg7 19.Qf4+ Kg8 20.Re3! white breaks through, for example 20…e5 21.dxe6 Nxe6 22.Qf5 Qf7 23.Nf6+ Kf8 24.Rf3!, threatening 25.Nxd7+.) 18.Nf3 d6 19.Neg5+ Kg8 20.Qd8+ Kg7 21.Rxe7+ Kh6 22.Nf7+! Kh5 (After 22…Qxf7 23.Qxd6+ Qg6 24.Qf4+ Kh5 25.Qh4 mates.) 23.Re5+! dxe5 (Not waiting for 24.Qh4 mate…) Black resigned.
Puzzler.
White — Qc2, Nd3, pawn on d5, Bd6, Re7, Kh3
Black — Bb2, Qc3, Re4, Nf3, Kh8, pawns on d7, f4
White to play and mate in two.
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