Hikaru Nakamura wins FiNet Open

In this second report on the Mainz Chess Classic, we'll look at Chess960 one more time. Yesterday, Hikaru Nakamura, who had won the ICC qualifier to Mainz, finished first at the the FiNet Open - you know, that huge Fischerrandom rapid chess tournament where many big guns start to think from move one.

The American dominated the field from the word go. With only two rounds left, he seemed to be cruising to the title, but in the penultimate round German ace Arkadij Naiditsch won the exciting encounter against the fastest player on earth.

When Nakamura only scored a draw in his final round against Vladimir Potkin, the audience thought that Naiditsch would win the event, since his opponent Motylev blundered terribly with only a few seconds left on the clock. With a queen up, everybody waited for Motylev to resign. But the German, with 10 seconds left on his clock, blundered as well: he missed a mate in 3! Sergei Movsesian and Alexander Motylev also scored 9 points, but they had the worse Buchholz points.

Here's a video of these dramatic moments, followed by an interview with the winner, both created by Georgios Souleidis:





Many more videos can be found at the Chesstigers website.

Links:

• Official website
• Games in PGN