Nakamura Makes Triumphant Return In Arena Kings Season 9 (Week 4)

After missing two straight weeks during his victory in the first part of the FIDE Grand Prix, GM Hikaru Nakamura returned to Arena Kings for the fourth week of season nine and took home the victory in the finals over GM Baadur Jobava. The semifinalists were GMs Raunak Sadhwani (last week's winner) and Benjamin Bok.

1,636 players participated in this week's Arena Kings, of whom 73 streamed their proceedings.

The tournament began with the standard two-hour arena, followed by the usual knockout tournament between the top 16 finishing streamers. Both the arena and knockout use a 3+0 time control. 

• Arena
• Knockout
• Standings, Results, Prizes

Arena

Today's broadcast looked in on several players, including Andrew Horne (@chessheroesttv), GM Robert Hess, Bok, and Jobava. During one of Jobava's game, he got to play a tactic that turned a bad game around and reacted accordingly.

Nakamura foreshadowed his victory with the highest score among streaming titled players, 83 points on a dominant +22 -1 =1, including an 18-game winning streak. His only defeat was to Jobava, which was the third straight game the Georgian had won against Naka. 

Knockout

Hess did not qualify for the knockout bracket so he joined Anna-Maja on the commentary. Two non-titled players made it to the quarterfinals, but Nakamura dispatched Marvin Henning (@FritziSchach_Twitch) while Sadwhani knocked out Sundram Kumar (@SundramNaam2SunaHoga).

The ensuing semifinals brought two heavyweight matches: Nakamura vs. Bok and Sadhwani vs. Jobava, the latter of which featured last week's Arena Kings winner Sadhwani and recent Titled Tuesday winner Jobava. 

Bok held two draws with Black but dropped his game with White as Hikaru moved on.

After that, Jobava defeated Sadhwani two wins to one, losing the second game when he flagged just one move away from a draw.

Jobava had been running well against Hikaru, winning three of their four games in the past two days, including wins in both Titled Tuesday events on February 22 and a split during today's Arena. But it was a new day, and Naka exacted revenge this time. It wasn't an easy road, however, with Jobava pulling off another win in the first game. After that, Nakamura settled in to win three straight and claim this week's title.

All Games | Week 4 Finals

Standings, Results, Prizes

Nakamura won $500 for his efforts with Jobava taking $350. Sadhwani and Bok each won $200; fifth through eighth took $100, and ninth through 16th received $50 (pending confirmation of fair play). Below are the full standings of the knockout:

 Arena Kings Season 9 | Week 4 | Final Knockout Standings

Full arena standings here.

All prizes are published in the results report here. 

Arena Kings is a weekly tournament held by Chess.com every Wednesday. It is a two-hour Arena followed by a knockout with the top 16 finishers. The event begins at 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time/18:00 Central European.