Anand Leads Champions Showdown, Nakamura Misses Incredible Resource
The most consistent player in Saint Louis by far today was five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand, who now leads the 2016 Champions Showdown with a total of 8.0/12. After the classical portion ended yesterday, the players played a double round-robin in rapid, with a time control of fifteen minutes with a five-second delay. A very topsy-turvy Hikaru Nakamura stands at clear second with 6.5/12, while Veselin Topalov (5.0/12) and Fabiano Caruana (4.5/12) are well behind.
All photos courtesy of the Saint Louis Chess Club.
Even though four days are now complete in this five-day event, the tournament is only halfway through! This is because the players will be playing another 12 games in the blitz portion tomorrow, which are scored equally to the classical and rapid events. With that, let's take a look at some highlights of the day's action:
In the first round of rapid, Vishy found a startling endgame combination to queen his b-pawn, but he missed a key detail. Luckily for him, Hikaru missed it too!
In the very next round, Hikaru's luck switched, as Caruana blundered a pawn to an elementary tactic:
Hikaru Nakamura defended well and took his chances.
Vishy continued to play well with this smooth win over Topalov:
In Rround 10, Fabiano finally scored his first win of the event, converting a technical advantage in a position with opposite-color bishops:
Fabiano has yet to find his form in Saint Louis, but he can still catch up with a strong performance in the blitz tomorrow.
In the same round, Vishy again outplayed Nakamura in a Nimzo-Indian, but this time he couldn't get the job done to score the full point.
For most of the day, Hikaru would save bad or even lost positions, but he showed good technique when he had the advantage, like in this game against Caruana:
A rough day for Veselin Topalov, who'll surely be looking to strike back tomorrow.
One of the most impressive games of the day was this one in which Vishy displayed the power of rooks in his second win against Topalov:
And the last game of the day to finish was this chaotic time scramble between Topalov and Nakamura, ending in a finger-fehler for the former FIDE world champion:
