The Legend Himself: Agadmator Tournament Finale
The tournament that was started three weeks ago, hosted by Antonio Radić also known as Agadmator, was stopped and postponed due to techincal difficulties. It literally broke the internet, as the lichess servers could not handle all the games. The tournament was set to resume after the New Year, because of the upcoming World Rapid and Blitz Championship. The wait for the tournament to continue was over yesterday.
Before the break, GM Hikaru Nakamura with his account TSMFTXH was leading the tournament, having only one loss, against IM Eric Rosen. Having the lead, Hikaru did not want to break down, and he continued the second half of the tournament with same pace.
Hikaru faced off against Andrew Tang, also known as penguingim1, one of the most popular bullet online chess players. Even though we know how Hikaru can master his way out of lost and drawn positions into wins, Andrew is tough opponent. However, the game between the two of them ended after only 19 moves. Andrew resigned after he took the rook on f4, trying to trade material and go into endgame. Hikaru found brilliant move Bd5+, which ends the game on the spot, unless you want to give away the queen for nothing and suffer more moves.
You might have guessed that the World Champion who lost both titles in World Rapid and Blitz, Magnus Carlsen also known as DrChampionstein, would come to the second half of this tournament prepared and ready to take down all these GMs. Well, we did get a face off between him and Hikaru. The game started with the Bongcloud, the famous troll opening, as Magnus tried to have some fun. Hikaru did not flinch, he seized the opportunity, and Magnus blundered the queen. After he offered the trade of queens, Hikaru took the knight on e2 with check, ending the game on the spot as Magnus is losing his queen on the next turn. This game also ended after only 19 moves, just amazing.
Hikaru also drew two games against young superstar GM Alireza Firouza, and managed to beat young GM Andrey Esipenko twice. He did have some losses, but overall, he crushed his competition. Nobody came even close to challenge him for the first place. Here are the final results of the AgadmatorCake DeFi Arena:
At the end of the day, we can all hope that more tournaments like this one are going to be held in future. It brought almost every top GM to one place, competing for the ultimate first place.
PS: If you want to join my chess club, use the link below. Have fun!
