Hikaru Nakamura against Vidit Gujrathi

Lets take a look at the final game between Hikaru and Vidit Gujrathi in the October 2020 speed chess on chess.com

The winner of the game would be the entire tournament winner, so stakes were high.

Opening : Ruy Lopez, Anti Berlin Defense, Hikaru has the white pieces.

Standard opening which Hikaru has played against Magnus Carlsen several times in the past months. Vidit decides with Black to castle long and we reach the following

in the diagram above, Hikaru decides to play Ng5 to capture the bishop on e6.

so far so good but soon the first critical position occurs, White to play

Hikaru played 0-0 on which Vidit replied with 12..Nxe4! Hikaru just blundered the e4 pawn. Stockfish is evaluating the position around -2.0 pawns.

This is where Hikaru's strength comes in. He keeps playing, trying to make Vidit's task harder.

You can replay the middlegame above. Hikaru decides to play fast but his position remains passive. Vidit rightly advances the pawns on white's kingside: White's king is under attack while White cannot really get to Black's king. in the last moves, Vidit is trying to exchange queens but Hikaru is keeping the queens on the board.

While Vidit doesn't blunder -yet- he is not finding the moves to put the game away. let me give one example after 32 Qd4: Black has a clear path to increase his advantage to a decisive level.

and we reach the last part of the game. of course Black is short on time but Hikaru managed to win the pawn on h5 and Black decides to force the matter and blunders his big advantage on move 36

This is how Hikaru managed to win the final games despite an early blunder and a worse position for 35 moves. Resiliency and defensive skills matter !