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Ivanchuk takes revenge, beats Nakamura in final Cap d'Agde

PeterDoggers
| 0 | Chess Event Coverage
Ivanchuk takes revenge, beats Nakamura in Cap d'AgdeThis year's rapid tournament in Cap d'Agde was won by Vassily Ivanchuk, who beat Hikaru Nakamura in the final 1.5-0.5 yesterday. In doing so the Ukrainian grandmaster took revenge for his loss in the final last year against the same opponent.

Photo © | Europe-Echecs

General info

The 9th Chess encounters Nationales and Internationales of Cap d'Agde took place October 23-31. It started with 16 players in two separate groups (round-robins) from which the best four of each would qualify for the knockout phase. The time control was 25 minutes plus 10 seconds increment.

We left the tournament after the group phase. The knockout stage was played with matches consisting of two games, from Thursday, October 28 till Sunday, October 31, 2010:

Thursday Hikaru Nakamura-Jon Ludvig Hammer 2-0 Bu Xiangzhi-Yannick Pelletier 1.5-0.5

Friday Nguyen Ngoc Truong-Le Quang Liem 2-4 Judit Polgar-Vasily Ivanchuk 0-2

Saturday Hikaru Nakamura-Le Quang Liem 3-1 Vassily Ivanchuk-Bu Xiangzhi 2-0

Sunday Vassily Ivanchuk-Hikaru Nakamura 1.5-0.5

The final on Sunday saw two King's Gambits. The first reached a symmetrical position after about ten moves, and became a strategical fight. In an endgame that was slightly better for White, Ivanchuk's 34.c4!! was a brilliant positional concept that you shouldn't miss below in the game viewer. Nakamura's 41...Nd6 was a blunder but the endgame was difficult already.

The second game saw a real, romantic, 19th century King's Gambit with both kings getting under fire. Nakamura's 9.Ne1 is a rare but interesting move and later perhaps the now St. Louis resident should have tried 16.Qe1!? as, after he probably missed 17...Bg4!, Ivanchuk could force a draw immediately to win the mini-match.

Games knockout phase



Game viewer by ChessTempo


Hikaru Nakamura, this time second...

Hikaru Nakamura, this time second...



...losing the final against Vassily Ivanchuk

...losing the final against Vassily Ivanchuk



Videos by Europe-Echecs



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PeterDoggers
Peter Doggers

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.”

In October, Peter's first book The Chess Revolution will be published!


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