Chessable Masters: Nakamura Knocks Out Dubov
GM Hikaru Nakamura avoided early elimination by beating GM Daniil Dubov in the final round of the Chessable Masters A group's Swiss phase on Monday. GMs Magnus Carlsen, Vladislav Artemiev, and Alexander Grischuk also qualified for the knockout.
The games of the Chessable Masters can be found here as part of our live events platform. GM Aryan Tari, IM Levy Rozman, WGM Qiyu Zhou, and IM Aleksandr Ostrovskiy are providing daily commentary on Hikaru Nakamura's Twitch channel, embedded on Chess.com/TV.
There were some scary moments for Nakamura, who started the second day with a loss, followed by three draws. That first mishap was at the hands of Carlsen, who once again managed to find a way to keep play for White in the American's solid Queen's Gambit Declined repertoire. It seems that Nakamura's inaccurate move order was the basis for his later problems.
After nine rounds, Nakamura was in fifth place on tiebreak, having scored 4/9, just as Grischuk. There was little chance that a draw would be enough to finish among the top four players—the ones who qualify for the next phase.
Nakamura had to play for a win against Dubov and delivered. He copied an opening setup Grischuk had played earlier in the day against the same opponent, and Dubov didn't have enough time to fix his Accelerated Dragon between rounds:
Two more games need to be included in this report. First, a much better effort by Dubov from round seven, which was Artemiev's only loss.
It was truly inspiring play by the winner of the Lindores Abbey tournament, and it's unfortunate to see him leave this next event so early.
Dubov channeling his inner Morphy on the day the great American was born in 1837.
We're not leaving Dubov just yet as the last game is an excellent win by Carlsen against him. The world champion was having a much better day than his first one.
Dubov was the unlucky one among three players finishing on 50 percent. The other GM not advancing to the knockout was Pentala Harikrishna.
Group A Final Standings
| # | Fed | Name | Rtg | Perf | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | Pts | SB |
| 1 | Carlsen,Magnus | 2881 | 2839 | ½½ | ½½ | ½1 | 01 | 1½ | 6.0/10 | 28 | ||
| 2 | Artemiev,Vladislav | 2769 | 2861 | ½½ | ½½ | ½½ | 10 | 11 | 6.0/10 | 27 | ||
| 3 | Grischuk,Alexander | 2784 | 2787 | ½½ | ½½ | ½½ | ½½ | 01 | 5.0/10 | 25 | ||
| 4 | Nakamura,Hikaru | 2829 | 2779 | ½0 | ½½ | ½½ | ½1 | ½½ | 5.0/10 | 24.5 | ||
| 5 | Dubov,Daniil | 2770 | 2790 | 10 | 01 | ½½ | ½0 | 1½ | 5.0/10 | 24 | ||
| 6 | Harikrishna,Pentala | 2690 | 2660 | 0½ | 00 | 10 | ½½ | 0½ | 3.0/10 |
Games Group A, Day 2
The Chessable Masters runs June 20-July 5 on chess24 as part of the Magnus Carlsen Tour. The prize fund is $150,000 with a first prize of $45,000. The time control is 15 minutes for all moves with a 10-second increment after each move. No draw offers are allowed before move 40.
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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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