News release
Sunday 13th December 2009
LONDON CHESS CLASSIC: ROUND 5 INTERIM PRESS RELEASE
Please note that this is an interim summary press release – full press release to follow
There were two decisive games in an exciting round at the London Chess Classic today. Magnus Carlsen stretched his lead to three points after beating Ni Hua with Black in a game which did not start too well for him but gradually got better and better as the Chinese super-GM faltered.
The other winner was Luke McShane, who also started uncertainly against Hikaru Nakamura but emerged from some complications with a bishop and two pawns for a rook and eventually the advantage of the extra pawns told.
There was a fascinating duel between England numbers one and two, Nigel Short and Michael Adams, with Short seeming to get slightly the better of things until he overlooked the force of Adams’ pawn thrust 40 e6. At the conference he admitted he was relieved that he still had a way to draw.
In 2002, the 11-year-old David Howell broke a record and made headlines when he drew a game in an exhibition rapidplay match with world champion Vladimir Kramnik in London. This time it was serious stuff, but the 19-year-old old Howell drew again. The game came to life when Kramnik sacrificed on f2. It looked good but the ex-world champion lost the thread and eventually drew.
Current scores: Carlsen 11/15, Kramnik 8, McShane 7, Adams, Howell 5, Nakamura, Short 4, Ni Hua 3.
There were be a longer report on Round Five, with annotated games and more photos in a few hours’ time.
For more information and to buy tickets to The London Chess Classic, please go to www.londonchessclassic.com
ENDS
For further information please call:
John Saunders
Chess Press Chief, London Chess Classic
Press Room: 020 7598 6598
Mobile: 07777 664111
E : chesspress@londonchessclassic.com
Nakamura will win the final 2 rounds to come from behind and win this tournament. He’s just a slow starter. He’s the #1 rated player on ICC and he beat Carlsen in Norway. He’s simply the best.
His ICC rating or win against Magnus in Norway doesn’t mean anything here. This is classical chess, not blitz.
However, it seems Naka is in blitz mode given his horrible time management (I mean, he blitzed his way to a loss in a drawn endgame for **** sake).
The chances of Naka winning against both Howell and Kramnik is about as likely as a piano falling from above and hitting Naka in the head.
And you forgot one thing: He can’t win the tournament, because Magnus already has 11 points. Naka can in theory get 10 points. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if he managed to lose at least one more game.
Naka is the quintessential ‘coffee house player’. Not truly the best in serious classical chess.
Kramnik’s sac on f2 looked speculative at best. The only forcing line, which occurred in the game, left Black searching for a way to draw an ending in which B+N was clearly better than R plus pawns. (often it’s the other way around in that type of ending.) I still question Nxb5?! instead of Bxf4.
Meanwhile, Nakamura was dynamically equal after Be7, but is that the type of position White is trying to achieve? No.
Carlsen steadily outplayed Ni Hua from a slightly worse position — well played.
Before this round, I thought that Kramnik would win the tournament (in spite of his first-round loss) but now Carlsen can clamp down victory in short order.
“Nakamura will win the final 2 rounds to come from behind and win this tournament. He’s just a slow starter. He’s the #1 rated player on ICC…”
1) Even if he does win last two games (which he won’t – he will lose against Kramnik), he still can’t win the tournament.
2) I see this lie about him being #1 on ICC over and over. He is NOT. He is only #3 or 4# in blitz and he is 150 points lower rated than Le Quang Liem who is #1 on ICC blitz..