Anand Beats Nakamura, Regains Lead In Zurich
GM Hikaru Nakamura's 2800+ live rating was short-lived as he lost today at the Zurich Chess Challenge to GM Viswanathan Anand, who took over the lead.
Both Aronian-Caruana and Kramnik-Karjakin ended in draws. Anand defends his one-point lead tomorrow as Black against Karjakin. On Thursday, five rounds of rapid will be played.
After four rounds only two players have won a game in Zurich — actually two for both: GM Viswanathan Anand and GM Hikaru Nakamura. Their mutual game ended in a win for Anand today, and so the Indian is the new leader again.
To some extent this game was decided right after the opening. It seems that Anand mixed up his opening preparation a bit, because on move 18 his knight maneuver to e2 allowed Black to swap on b4 and a1.
“In what I looked at, this worked for White,” said Anand.
However, Nakamura only noticed this possibility right after he had played 18...g6: “As soon as I played the move ...g6 I realized I had completely blundered it.”
It was a crucial moment for the American's state of mind during the game. “I couldn't recover after this move,” he said at the press conference and later he tweeted:
The worst thing is chess is missing a good move and having to continue the game as though nothing happened.
— Hikaru Nakamura (@GMHikaru) February 17, 2015
After Anand got in 25.Rb6, the game was practically over. (In the game viewer below, don't miss the variation given by Anand starting with 36...Ra8 with a beautiful defensive idea for Black!)
It's getting somewhat repetitive, but GM Levon Aronian again missed a good chance in the game he drew with GM Fabiano Caruana. In a Queen's Gambit Declined, Lasker Variation, he kept a slight edge, and then a critical moment arose on move 26.
Aronian could have given two pieces for a rook and two pawns, leading to a position where he can play for two results. But he didn't.
“26.Bxc6 is the correct move. I'm worse but it's probably OK,” said Caruana, who showed impressive calculation during the press conference.
So, why had he allowed that possibility for his opponent?
“I spent half an hour calculating, deciding on 25...Nd7 because it's the ideal move to play," said Caruana. "After that I wasn't sure if I should go for it but I decided that it's such a shame to waste half an hour calculating a move that you don't play and I thought that it's anyway playable if I take.”
The two Russian participants, GM Vladimir Kramnik and GM Sergey Karjakin, then also drew their game — but not without a fight.
In a King's Indian Attack that looked like a Closed Sicilian (but with Black's king's bishop on e7), White was slightly better out of the opening.
Just like his compatriots Evgeny Tomashevsky and Alexander Grischuk, Karjakin played a move, only to take it back the next! “I was very proud of it,” he joked after the game about his Nc6-d4-c6.
This knight proved more useful on b4, where it supported the central push d6-d5. Kramnik showed many variations in the press conference, but one remark said it all: “I probably overestimated. I thought White had a very nice plus here.”
2015 Zurich Chess Challenge | Pairings & Results
| Round 1 | 14 February | 15:00 CET | Round 2 | 15 February | 15:00 CET | |
| Anand | 1-1 | Kramnik | Kramnik | 1-1 | Nakamura | |
| Aronian | 1-1 | Karjakin | Karjakin | 1-1 | Caruana | |
| Caruana | 0-2 | Nakamura | Anand | 2-0 | Aronian | |
| Round 3 | 16 February | 15:00 CET | Round 4 | 17 February | 15:00 CET | |
| Aronian | 1-1 | Kramnik | Kramnik | 1-1 | Karjakin | |
| Caruana | 1-1 | Anand | Anand | 2-0 | Nakamura | |
| Nakamura | 2-0 | Karjakin | Aronian | 1-1 | Caruana | |
| Round 5 | 18 February | 13:00 CET | ||||
| Caruana | - | Kramnik | ||||
| Nakamura | - | Aronian | ||||
| Karjakin | - | Anand |
2015 Zurich Chess Challenge | Round 4 Standings
| # | Name | Rtg | Perf | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | Pts | SB |
| 1 | Anand,V | 2797 | 2977 |  |
2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 6 | ||
| 2 | Nakamura,H | 2776 | 2876 | 0 | |
1 | 2 | 2 | 5 | ||
| 3 | Kramnik,V | 2783 | 2778 | 1 | 1 | |
1 | 1 | 4 | ||
| 4 | Caruana,F | 2811 | 2689 | 1 | 0 | |
1 | 1 | 3 | 3.00 | |
| 5 | Aronian,L | 2777 | 2700 | 0 | 1 | 1 | |
1 | 3 | 2.50 | |
| 6 | Karjakin,S | 2760 | 2699 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
3 | 2.50 |
The tournament consists of five rounds of classical chess played from Saturday, February 14 till Wednesday, February 18. On the last day, Thursday, February 19, the players will play five rounds of rapid chess with reversed colors.
During the first five days, a winner of a classical game earns 2 points for the overall standings; the loser 0. In case of a draw each player earns 1 point. In the rapid games the winner earns 1 point, by a draw each player half a point and the loser 0.
Previous reports:
Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
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