Rising Stars Win - Nakamura Amber Bound
The Experience Team went down fighting at the NH Tournament in Amsterdam, winning two games in the final round to restrict the Rising Stars' margin of victory to just two points.
Even more dramatic was the finish of the race to be the highest scoring Rising Star, with the prize of an invite to the prestigious Amber tournament next year at stake.
It seemed that Hikaru Nakamura had the impossible task of beating Boris Gelfand with the black pieces to catch Anish Giri. However, Giri slipped up with a loss against Peter Heine Nielsen so a draw was enough for Nakamura to take the contest to blitz tie-breaks
Nakamura duly won the tie-break 2-0 to book his ticket to Amber.
A tough finish for Giri, but elation for Nakamura who tweeted shortly after his win, "All I can say is yes, yes, yes! Absolute vindication for the disaster last year".
The final round results:
| Gelfand – Nakamura | ½ - ½ |
| Ljubojevic – Caruana | ½ - ½ |
| Van Wely – So | ½ - ½ |
| Nielsen – Giri | 1 - 0 |
| Svidler - Howell | 1 - 0 |
The final standings:
| Experience | Nat | Elo | W | D | L | 24.0 |
| Gelfand, Boris | ISR | 2739 | 4 | 6 | 0 | 7.0 |
| Svidler, Peter | RUS | 2734 | 2 | 7 | 1 | 5.5 |
| Van Wely, Loek | NED | 2677 | 1 | 6 | 3 | 4.0 |
| Nielsen, Peter Heine | DEN | 2700 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 4.0 |
| Ljubojevic, Ljubomir | SRB | 2572 | 1 | 5 | 4 | 3.5 |
| Rising Stars | Nat | Elo | W | D | L | 26.0 |
| Nakamura, Hikaru | USA | 2729 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 6.0 |
| Giri, Anish | NED | 2672 | 3 | 6 | 1 | 6.0 |
| Caruana, Fabiano | ITA | 2672 | 2 | 6 | 2 | 5.0 |
| Howell, David W L | ENG | 2616 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 4.5 |
| So, Wesley | PHI | 2674 | 0 | 9 | 1 | 4.5 |
