Hikaru Nakamura exploited a huge blunder by World Champion Magnus Carlsen to win their mini-match on Day 1 of the Fischer Random World Championship in Reykjavik. In the other group the headlines were stolen by 18-year-old Nodirbek Abdusattorov, who crushed Ian Nepomniachtchi 2:0 before also taking down defending champion Wesley So.
A blunder too far for Magnus Carlsen | photo: Lennart Ootes, FIDE
Replay the games from the group stages of the World Fischer Random Championship in Reykjavik:
The first stage of the 8-player World Fischer Random Chess Championship is split into two groups, with Nodirbek Abdusattorov and Hikaru Nakamura taking the lead after winning both their mini-matches on Day 1. There are 2 points for winning a mini-match, with the game points only used in case of a tie.
The top two qualify from each group, however, and there are two days to go, so that no-one is out of contention.
The players and seconds get the position 15 minute before the start of a round | photo: Lennart Ootes, FIDE
On Day 1 the focus was on Group B, where Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura were set to meet.
Before the big Carlsen-Nakamura showdown, the day started with Carlsen-Fedoseev and Nakamura-Bluebaum in Round 1. The favourites won, though not without some drama along the way.
Magnus Carlsen got off to a thumping start, punishing Vladimir Fedoseev’s ambitious opening with an attack that could have been taken straight from any online Tactics Trainer.
There was no real defence to the threat of Qxg6 and Rh3 checkmate, with the game continuing 17…b5 18.Bd5 fxe5 19.Qxg6 Rf6 20.Qe8+. Magnus went on to win in 25 moves, when he still had an extra piece and and was putting heavy pressure on Fedoseev’s undeveloped pieces.
That meant Magnus only needed a draw in the second game, and until move 26 he seemed well on course… before 26…Qg6? was almost the worst move in the position — removing a defender of the f8-rook and walking into an attack from 27.Ne5+!
It looked almost certain that Magnus would lose the game and have to settle for a single match point, but he dug deep and managed to escape with an unusual fortress. In fact by the end of the game he could have played on for a win.
Hikaru Nakamura, meanwhile, showed all his practical skills to finally hustle a 61-move win over Matthias Bluebaum. The German grandmaster put up great resistance and was close to rescuing a draw, but in time trouble he picked up a bishop on b3 instead of trading off queens.
The endgame would still have been tough to hold, but after 62…c1=Q 63.Qf7+ Kh6 Matthias realised he didn’t actually have any checks and had nothing better than to resign.
Matthias briefly had good chances in the second game, but when he missed the opportunity Hikaru shut things down and made a 31-move draw that clinched match victory. That meant that Magnus and Hikaru would play for the Day 1 lead when they met in Round 2.
Carlsen-Nakamura was perhaps the match the crowd had come to see | photo: Lennart Ootes, FIDE
Chess960 can be controversial. Chess professionals tend to love the way it frees them from opening preparation, while for the average chess fan it makes a difficult game even more difficult to follow. Sometimes, however, it’s hard not to love the game — for instance, when a game starts the way Nakamura-Carlsen did!
The move had everything. Not only was it a piece sacrifice, but Rauf Mamedov had recently resigned when Magnus played 1…g5, in the standard starting position, in an online event, describing the move as “mockery”.
Hikaru had very much enjoyed the 1…g5 antics, however, and even adopted the move himself, so he certainly wasn’t going to resign.
The point of the sacrifice was that after 2.Qxh8 Nf6 3.Qg7 Rg8 4.Qh6 d5! the h3-square is also taken away from the queen, so it can be trapped with Rg6. You don’t necessarily stop calculating there, however, since as Black has already sacrificed a bishop if you get a rook for the queen as well you’re close to breaking even.
Hikaru was looking at 5.f4, while a number of grandmasters were tempted by 5.h4, which shows how chess players’ intuition and pattern recognition can go haywire when confronted by Chess960 positions!
This is the position Erwin reached:
And now of course 7.Rxh6 isn’t a legal move without a rook on a1. Erwin was far from alone, with Nigel Short and two more grandmasters “calculating” the same line.
Of note here is that Peter Heine Nielsen is the player tasked with helping Magnus Carlsen in Reykjavik in the 15 minutes after the new position is revealed to the players.
Instead Hikaru went for 2.Bb2! and a very tense, well-played game followed, with the players keeping everything tight both on the board and on the clock until the game ultimately fizzled out into a draw.
For more on the game, and the match, check out Hikaru Nakamura’s own analysis for his YouTube channel.
For the second game Magnus switched to 1.b4 and this time Hikaru decided against offering the same sacrifice. He said that in the discussion the players had between games Magnus had said he felt it was good for Black, but Hikaru wasn’t sure if that wasn’t just a bluff.
Vladimir Fedoseev's suit perhaps demanded an intervention... | photo: Lennart Ootes, FIDE
The game saw Magnus gradually gain a big strategic advantage, though he’d already misplayed it somewhat before disaster would strike the World Champion for a second time on the day.
When Hikaru played 30…Rb3! Nils Grandelius in our commentary pointed out that cutting the white queen’s connection to the c2-rook threatened Qe4+, but after thinking for two and a half minutes Magnus played 31.a6??, allowing 31…Qe4+ anyway!
Magnus was just losing a rook, while it seems his intention had been to play 31.f3! Nb5 32.a6!, when it’s White pushing to win.
Magnus tried to muddy the waters, but as Hikaru explained, he was willing to give up some of his advantage to simplify into an endgame where he was 90% sure he could win. He ultimately cruised to a win in 46 moves.
No-one said it was gonna to be easy! | photo: David Llada, FIDE
That heavy blow for Magnus is far from fatal, since the top two qualify from the group and he’s tied for 2nd place with Vladimir Fedoseev, who bounced back to beat Matthias Bluebaum and pick up 2 points. Each player in the group faces each other twice, so that Magnus will also have a chance for revenge against Hikaru.
At first glance Wesley So and Ian Nepomniachtchi were the clear favourites to qualify from Group A, but 18-year-old Nodirbek Abdusattorov from Uzbekistan isn’t the World Rapid Champion for nothing and managed to dominate Day 1.
Nodirbek Abdusattorov has already won the Chess Olympiad and World Rapid Championship in the space of a year | photo: Lennart Ootes, FIDE
Most impressively he crushed Ian Nepomniachtchi, after going for a powerful piece sacrifice on move 12.
After 12.exd5! fxg3 13.Re1+ Nodirbek had correctly judged that the piece was a good investment for torturing the black king in the middle of the board. Nepo couldn’t find the best defence and resigned on move 22.
The 2nd game was much longer, but, needing to win, Nepo could only convert a drawish endgame into a lost one.
Defending Champion Wesley So had had a tough start, missing a number of wins as he let Icelandic no. 1 Hjorvar Steinn Gretarsson escape in a 100-move marathon game.
Hjorvar Gretarsson earned a round of applause from the local fans | photo: David Llada, FIDE
There wasn’t going to be a fairy tale for Hjorvar, however, as in the next game he’d lost a pawn by move 10 and resigned on move 19.
The queen is coming to c7, or d3/c4, to give checkmate. Hjorvar was then in trouble in 8 moves in the next game against Nepomniachtchi and never recovered as he lost 2:0.
For Wesley So, meanwhile, everything ultimately rested on the first game against Nodirbek. He achieved another winning position but once failed to convert, this time in 82 moves. The last big chance came on move 75.
75.Be8! and suddenly, with the fall of the g6-pawn, Black’s position would collapse. 75…f5 76.Qe6! doesn’t help.
The time control is tough in the event, however, with no increment before move 31 and then only 5 seconds added per move. Wesley went for 75.Qb7+ and soon Nodirbek forced a draw by perpetual check.
Nodirbek Abdusattorov beat reigning Champion Wesley So | photo: David Llada, FIDE
Nodirbek then went on to win the second game and the mini-match, with the most impressive thing being that he outplayed Wesley after the game had lost any specific Chess960 features — in the kind of technical position where Wesley is considered an absolute master.
A curiosity of the double round-robin system, where the players play two mini-matches against each rival, is that on Wednesday all the players will face the same opponent in both matches — i.e. four games in total. So-Nepomniachtchi will likely be the key clash, while we have a clear favourite in the other battles: Gretarsson-Abdusattorov, Bluebaum-Carlsen and Nakamura-Fedoseev.
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