Best Games of FIDE World Cup Round 2.1

As promised, I'm continuing to offer my notes and analysis as I prepare videos for our YouTube and Twitch channels during the 2019 FIDE World Cup. In Round 2 we, once again, saw fighting chess (the kind only a knockout event with stakes like the World Cup has can offer), and I had a field day trying to decide which were right to cover...

As most logical people do when they need sound advice  I went to social media and got the following results:

It turned out, many wanted me to review Anton's win over Wei Yi that round as well!

Anyway, while I ultimately made up my own mind and ignored the social media vote in the end (again, as most sane people do) -- I still really appreciate everyone who voted!

Moving on, as I said in the video, I really loved this game and thought it was a borderline perfect effort by Nihal Sarin. Obviously he was eventually outed in the second round by Eltaj Safarli, but that doesn't change my view that this kind as a HUGE future and I was more than excited to analyze and record a video about his Lopez masterpiece.

The game:

The video:

The second game/video of round 2.1 was undoubtedly the more "talked about" battle. It's always news when an elite GM and celebrity like Hikaru Nakamura loses in the fashion he did; however, for me, this next game was much close to being a well-prepared draw by Hikaru (given he had the black pieces) than most realized.

The simple truth is you lose games at a high level when you confuse your preparation. While the queen sacrifice was optically pleasing for all, and Nisipeanu deserves full credit for the victory, I think it was one move away (...Qa5) from being one of the more boring games of the round.

Either way, I hope you enjoy...

The game:

The video:

Peace to the people.

Danny