Nakamura Beats Anand In London, Again

With again only one decisive game in round four, the London Chess Classic now has three leaders: Anish Giri, Hikaru Nakamura and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. On Monday, Nakamura improved his score against Viswanathan Anand to 6-1.

Nakamura joined the leaders. | All photos by FM Mike Klein.

“I don't think there's a secret. It's just that for whatever reason certain people do well against certain people,” said Nakamura. 

Nakamura didn't have a special reason for it, but somehow he keeps on winning against Vishy Anand. In classical games the score is now 6-1 for the American, who also beat Anand in the playoff to win the Zurich Chess Challenge earlier this year.

“I don't think my style is that much different from Vishy's but I seem to find a way against him,” said Nakamura. “Especially here in London things have seem to gone my way.”

Nakamura defeated Anand for the second time in London in a classical game, but he also won the rapid game last year, and the two exchanged wins in the blitz last year.

But Anand does seem to bring out the best out of Nakamura somehow. The latter won a complicated game but made it look easy in the post-mortem afterward. Impressively accurate play.

Annotations by GM Robert Hess, with notes by GM Hikaru Nakamura

Anish Giri started with a win and is still on top of the standings, despite drawing his next three games. In round four he split the point with Levon Aronian, who seemed to be doing his best not to draw too quickly as Black.

“With 20...axb6 it's draw agreed, no?” asked Giri after the game. “Why 20...Nxe5?” “You play Nxe5 because it looks cool!” said Aronian. “I was trying to give you a chance to play and you don't appreciate it!”

“I really like these kind of people, most of the players nowadays they want to finish it as fast as possible,” said Giri. “So I really like it when people are pushing their luck, but I wasn't able to use it today unfortunately. The position is too solid.”

The second draw of the day appeared on the board of Alexander Grischuk and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. This game had a promising start: the 6.Bg5 Najdorf. We don't see this line that often anymore in modern chess, which is a pity.

MVL played the Delayed Poisoned Pawn, so first ...h6 and only then ...Qb6. It adds the move g7-g5 to Black's possible moves in many positions.

Grischuk didn't allow his b2-pawn to be taken, castled queenside, and a typical Sicilian position appeared. With an early d6-d5 push Vachier-Lagrave solved his problems and even got a slight advantage, but with aggressive play Grischuk held the balance.

The other two games went well beyond the first time control. The next game to end was Magnus Carlsen vs Michael Adams, where the world champion had been trying in vain to win an endgame where he was an exchange up for a pawn.

He won that exchange on move 28, when Adams “wasn't very optimistic” about his drawing chances. If Carlsen was winning anywhere it must have been somewhere close to the time control.

Moving the knight to d6 was a good maneuver as it held away the white king. Adams admitted that he missed 64.Bxf7 but he kept his cool.

Topalov vs Caruana was yet another game in London that ended in a draw, but could have been won by either player. First it was Caruana who got his chances with a great position out of the opening, but he spoiled his chances, got into trouble and then defended very well.

After six and three quarters of an hour, the game was finally over.

2015 London Chess Classic | Pairings & Results

2015 London Chess Classic | Round 4 Standings

#	Name	Rtg	Perf	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	0	Pts	SB
1	Nakamura	2793	2864		½		½				½	1		2.5/4	4.75
2	Vachier-Lagrave	2765	2887	½			½	½					1	2.5/4	4.25
3	Giri	2778	2858				½		½	½			1	2.5/4	4.00
4	Grischuk	2750	2784	½	½	½							½	2.0/4	4.25
5	Carlsen	2850	2775		½					½	½	½		2.0/4	4.00
6	Aronian	2781	2778			½				½	½	½		2.0/4	4.00
7	Adams	2744	2803			½		½	½			½		2.0/4	4.00
8	Caruana	2787	2806	½				½	½				½	2.0/4	3.75
9	Anand	2803	2704	0				½	½	½				1.5/4
10	Topalov	2803	2580		0	0	½				½			1.0/4

The London Chess Classic takes place in Kensington Olympia, London and runs until Monday, December 14. December 9 is a rest day. You can watch live streaming commentary daily at Chess.com/TV with GMs Jan Gustafsson and Daniel King.