Magnus Carlsen Invitational: Nakamura With the Knock Out
Hikaru Nakamura, one of the greatest online chess players of all time is the first finalist in the Magnus Carlsen Invitational Tournament. Today he defeated Fabiano Caruana, the number one player in the USA, after a series of 'difficult and wild games' as Nakamura himself stated on his popular twitch channel, GMHikaru. The match ended with Nakamura having 4 points and his fellow copatriot having 2 points. Nakamura and Caruana drew in the 4 round rapid section and Nakamura went on to win the two blitz tiebreakers.
In the online chess battle between these two legendary US players, there wasn't as much excitement as usual when these two players clash. "The first three games were plain" Nakamura stated in his celebration stream on Twitch and YouTube. The first two games were draws and Nakamura himself said that there wasn't much excitement in the first two games. In the third game of the rapid section, Nakamura won because of an amateur like blunder by Caruana. On move 41, Caruana took on the square d6 with his knight allowing Nakamura to fork Caruana's bishop and knight which made Caruana resign the game. "I was completely surprised!" Nakamura exclaimed on his celebration stream on Twitch later that afternoon. In a disappointment for Hikaru, the next game was won by Caruana! Hikaru told his subscribers on Twitch that he felt that in game 4 of the rapid section Caruana suddenly had an outburst of energy and that Caruana was playing at his maximum potential. Because of this, the rapid section ended in a 2|2 draw.
As a result, a tie-breaker was necessary. The tie-breaker round consisted of two blitz games in which Nakamura did excellently. When Nakamura's blitz games were put into the stockfish analyzer on chess.com, the analyzer showed that Nakamura had 98% accuracy. This meant that Nakamura played 98% of the moves a super chess computer would have done. Examples of these computers are Fritz, Black Mamba, Komodo, Stockfish, Houdini, etc. Nakamura beat Caruana in both games and he said that he was expecting nothing less because he has been playing blitz chess since he was nine and it was in his blood.
On Sunday we should see great results from Nakamura whether he plays Ding Liren or current world champion Magnus Carlsen. Nakamura has one of the best online chess stamina which is why is rating in blitz and bullet on chess.com is 3000+. Keep in mind that Nakamura has a guaranteed cash prize of 40,000 USD. If he wins on Sunday he will win the Magnus Carlsen Invitational and get a cash prize of 90,000 USD. This is a large amount of money for an online chess tournament. To wrap it all up, Nakamura is one of the greatest online chess players of all time and should have great results on Sunday.
