Group A
Karjakin, S. – van Wely, L. 1-0
Hou, Y. – Leko, P. ½-½
L’Ami, E. – Sokolov, I. ½-½
Wang, H. – Anand, V. 1-0
Nakamura, H. – Harikrishna, P. ½-½
Giri, A. – Carlsen, M. ½-½
Caruana, F. – Aronian, L. ½-½
Group B
Dubov, D. – van Kampen, R. ½-½
Smeets, J. – Turov, M. 1-0
Grandelius, N. – Tiviakov, S. ½-½
Ipatov, A. – Movsesian, S. ½-½
Naiditsch, A. – Ernst, S. 1-0
Timman, J. – Edouard, R. ½-½
Nikolic, P. – Rapport, R. 0-1
Group C
Gretarsson, H. – Goryachkina, A. ½-½
van der Werf, M. – Mekhitarian, K. 0-1
Burg, T. – Bitensky, I. 1-0
Romanishin, O. – Schut, L. 1-0
Admiraal, M. – Brunello, S. 0-1
Klein, D. – Swinkels, R. 0-1
Kovchan, A. – Peralta, F. ½-½
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
Nakamura should have won this tournament. He played the best chess. Carlsen was lucky.
“Nakamura should have won this tournament”. Good joke!
That’s a silly statement. The best chess wins tournaments. QED.
To anonymous 1: Yes, I do agree with your analysis, MC has been so lucky to play all these tournaments in a row far above 2900. Game 12 was the perfect exemple of the superiority of Naka.
The comment above is either tongue in cheek or a bit of jingoistic Naka-ism, but Carlsen’s performance does actually leave some room for doubt.
In my opinion Carlsen, in his forward calculations, is the cleverest at-the-board assessor of the merits of possible positions that the game has ever seen. However, at Tata and on other occasions recently, he did, through a combination of good play and good fortune, extricate himself from a number of rather ordinary positions that his opening play got him into.
Carlsen tends to avoid the highly analysed lines, and those in which an opponent might spring a novelty. This is a strength of his, as he backs himself to outplay his opponents in less familiar positions, but it is also his weakness, as he finds himself in an inferior set-up a little too often. At Tata this was the case several times, notably against Giri and Wang. Not quite convinced about the solidity of his choice against Nakamura either. His style gets him a lot of wins, but these recent unbeaten tournaments have been a little fortunate.
If Magnus tightened up this side of his game he would be incredibly good, and he may need more of an opening repertoire to take out a set WC match against someone like Kramnik or Aronian, which is ultimately how his career will be judged alongside Kasparov and the other greats of the game.
I’m not sure what games Anon of 2:20:00 PM CST was watching. Nakamura’s play was very ragged throughout the tournament. He never looked like a winner here.
Carlsen, on the other hand, is lucky to be such an exceedingly strong player.