By Hikaru Nakamura on 8/21/2009 11:48 PM

I will recap rounds 1-5 when we hit the rest day, but for now just a few quick comments on my first two rounds. In the first round game against GM Ljubojevic, we reached a very bizarre middlegame in which I was probably a bit worse. However, I was able to outplay my opponent towards the end of time control and reached a winning endgame only to simply hallucinate and forget where the White bishop ended up. This led to a draw. In the second round, I once again obtained a very promising position against GM van Wely after two inaccuries in the middlegame. With time control looming, I simply blundered horribly allowing a very cute e4-e3-e2 trick which led to an endgame in which Black has a fortress. What can I say about the first two games? I felt that I have played very well in general, but I am getting tired at critical points in the game. This probably has something to do with my health which has been steadily going downhill since the first day I arrived. Alas, I will now go back to sleep until the round.

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By Hikaru Nakamura on 8/16/2009 5:41 AM

Greetings to everyone from Japan once again. It seems that despite my best efforts to set certain time schedules for blogging, I end up doing it sooner than planned. Therefore, without further ado, I present a recap of the past week and all its wild adventures which were to be had. Enjoy!

Day 1: "Arrival"

Early Tuesday afternoon, I arrived at Tokyo Narita International Airport after a long 14 hour flight from Newark. Fortunately, due to all my traveling, I really did not feel like this was anything particularly surprising. For the first five hours of the flight, I slept like a baby so there really is nothing to mention there. After that, I spent the next two hours charging up my computer and then studying some chess for the tournament here in Japan. After I got bored by this, I chose to turn on the entertainment system and spent time admiring how much better movies were in the old days, having re-watched To Catch A Thief (Alfred Hitchcock) and Diamonds Are Forever (Who doesn't love Sean Connery?)....

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By Hikaru Nakamura on 8/15/2009 5:42 AM

This is a quick update for those who are interested. I am currently in the lead by a whole point here in the Japan League with a score of 6/6. However, I will be playing FM Akira Watanabe (used to be 2400 Fide) tomorrow, so it should be interesting. Once I return to the US for half a day on the 17th, I'll add a complete recap on the tournament.

 

By Hikaru Nakamura on 8/9/2009 10:12 PM

In tune with the past blog, I will now recap my past week which has also been extremely busy. For some unknown reason, I cannot ever have one free day of rest. Oh well, such is life in this day and age. At least I can keep everyone apprised of what IS happening.

Following the Mainz Chess Classic, I returned to New York for a few days briefly. Shortly thereafter, I headed off to Indianapolis, Indiana for the 2009 US Open. After arriving in Indianapolis on Thursday, I went straight to the tournament to check out who was participating as well as the location itself. I must say that after so many years away from the US Open, I am not happy with the current trend. Although the young talent seems to abound, I recognize fewer and fewer people with every passing year. Perhaps I am getting too old for too attend this tournament!? I recognized the usual faces such as Shabalov, Finegold,Kosteniuk, etc. After this, I briefly chatted with several people who asked me various questions about my schedule. Unfortunately,...

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By Hikaru Nakamura on 8/9/2009 12:21 AM

Hello to everyone once again. Unfortunately, because I am a total idiot, I accidentally hit the back button after finishing up my annotations on the first game from the 960 final against GM Aronian. Thus, I ended up erasing 1 hour of hard work...c'est la vie. Therefore, I am simply going to be writing up a blog entry without annotations as it will be too excruciating to redo all of it at this time.

Day 5: "Showdown in Mainz"

Once again, keeping in tandem with my 'normal' schedule up to this point, I chose to stay up for most of the evening prior to the looming showdown on the following day. Thus, I enjoyed a scrumptious breakfast at 6:30 AM eventually turning in around 7:30 AM. To avoid any potential nightmare, I set an alarm for 4:30 PM just to be safe. After waking up, I decided to chill out for an hour before I meditated and got ready for the big match. Surprisingly, I was very loose before the actual start. In many ways, my goal was to simply make it to the final, so by making it there and also...

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By Hikaru Nakamura on 8/2/2009 3:15 PM

Alright, this blog is definitely a few days later than I would have originally liked, but due to my incredibly erratic sleep schedule and brutally long days of chess, it somehow slipped my mind. Since the tournaments are now over, I will recap the Mainz Chess Classic in the separate segments since I have much to say about both events which I participated in. I hope everyone enjoys the blog!

Day 1: "Arrival"

Coming off so many trips in a row, it was nice to arrive in Mainz a full two days before playing in the 960 Rapid World Championship. There really is nothing much to recap except that I arrived at the Frankfurt International Airport at around 9 AM after one of the more annoying flights in recent memory. Getting from Frankfurt to Mainz is quite convenient as it only requires a short 45 minute train ride during which one gets a great view of the countryside. After checking in at the Hilton Mainz on the Rhine, I decided to completely crash as I was tired from jetlag and all the recent traveling I...

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By Hikaru Nakamura on 7/30/2009 7:02 PM

Greetings to everyone out there in cyberspace once again! Although I wish I could write a long blog right now, I am pretty tired and it is 2 AM, so I'll just sum it up that I beat Levon Aronian 3.5-.5 today in the finals of the 960 World Chess Chess Championship here in Mainz, Germany. I'll add a complete blog recapping the first three days of action and add some pictures along with it.

By Hikaru Nakamura on 7/24/2009 10:58 AM

Hello everyone! It just somehow has worked out that I have a few hours of downtime today before I go take care of business in New York City, so I will attempt to recap the past week.

Vancouver: "The Return"

In my last blog, I really wore out my fingers with the blog I wrote as I had to race against the clock and I promptly passed out immediately once I boarded the flight due to massive sleep deprivation. I did wake up a few hours later and had the luxury of sitting next to a couple of cute girls from New Jersey who were headed up to Whistler for some hiking. Immediately, I started giving them many ideas of what to do out there which really reminded me of all the great memories I had from last summer. Once I arrived in Vancouver, I promptly went out and enjoyed the afternoon with my friend Bruce out in the burbs. It involved many games of Seirawan Chess which was highly enjoyable for both of us.



These...

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By Hikaru Nakamura on 7/24/2009 9:21 AM

Greetings to everyone once again. I really wish I had time to write a comprehensive blog about this past week in Victoria and Vancouver, but my schedule is incredibly tight so I will write one up on Sunday once I am in Mainz Germany and have a free day to completely rest up and relax.

Cheers,

Hikaru

By Hikaru Nakamura on 7/18/2009 4:33 AM

A very good early morning to everyone from Newark Airport! Luckily, there is wifi here courtesy of Boingo Hotspots, so I will attempt to write this blog up before my flight to Vancouver which is scheduled to board 80 minutes from now (when I start the blog)! Before I dive into all the chess related stuff, I happened to catch the early morning news that the famed journalist, Walter Cronkite died either last night or this morning. It seems that far too many prominent people have passed away over the past few weeks, and I think one can only hope that we remember all the positives these inspirational people left behind and try to improve ourselves and the world. On that note, I cannot resist any further and shall now proceed to talk about the adventures which Spain has had to offer...enjoy! Round 7: "A Close Shave" Normally speaking, I would never have chosen this title for a specific game, but since it is 5:30 AM and I do not think my brain is functioning anywhere near 100% at this insane hour, it makes sense...

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