By Hikaru Nakamura on 2/12/2010 10:05 AM

Hello to everybody out there once again. I know many people are anxiously awaiting my third and final recap of Corus. Unfortunately, this will have to wait as I am currently in Vancouver for the next couple weeks enjoying the Olympics and rooting for Canada. GO CANADA GO!!

By Hikaru Nakamura on 2/8/2010 4:08 PM

Greetings to everyone around the world. Fortunately, it is sunny outside and most of us in the United States have recovered from SUPER SUNDAY! I know most people here probably would prefer chess to football (including Dave the webmaster, who is a Colts fan!) but I found the game to be extremely exciting. Having grown up in New York, I always was impressed by Sean Payton's ability as the defensive coordinator for the Giants. Overall, I felt that New Orleans won due to the many interesting and simply brilliant decisions including the onside kick to start the second half. Although I was pulling for Peyton Manning and the Colts due to the people I know in Indy, New Orleans was simply the better team last night. Alas, another football season has come and gone, but there's always next year for my Titans! Now back to chess...

Round 6: Ivanchuk-Nakamura

In the sixth round, I kept facing strong players as I was Black against GM Vasily Ivanchuk from Ukraine. Of the modern day players, I think my style most...

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By Hikaru Nakamura on 2/6/2010 11:22 AM

Hello once again to everyone out there in the blogosphere. Before I dive right into talking about Wijk, I would like to clear up a certain rumour from the online world. I am not playing in Aeroflot, nor did I ever seriously consider it. Any suggestions to the contrary are simply not true. Now that this is out of the way, onto the tournament recap!

 

Round 1: Smeets-Nakamura In the first round, I had Black against Dutch GM Jan Smeets. Like quite a few other European GMs, I have seen him at several tournaments over the past few years but not had the opportunity to play. Overall, Jan seems to be a very solid player with a pretty good general knowledge of openings. In our game, he surprised me by playing the 6.Bg5 variation against the Najdorf. As fate would have it, the tournament seemed to be a referendum on whether the Bg5 variation is good for White or not. I picked a mild sideline which surprised Jan, and he played a tame variation.



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By Hikaru Nakamura on 2/1/2010 10:38 AM

Greetings to everyone out there once again! Since I am spending much of the next 24 hours traveling, I will not be able add a blog until I am back in the US. Having said that, I hope everyone enjoyed the games, and I look forward to recapping all the exciting action over the past month!

 

 

By Hikaru Nakamura on 12/11/2009 4:50 AM

Good morning to everyone from gloomy London. I must say that having spent time in Seattle and Vancouver, I have gotten fairly used to overcast days. However, the weather here seems to be a steady forecast of clouds followed by rain and then more rain later on. Luckily, I am here to play chess which does not require nice weather, THANKFULLY! Overall, though, I do like most of the chaps I have met during the tournament thus far. The organization has been first class, and I have had a good time. Now onto what everyone is interested in- the games. In round 1 I had White against Chinese GM Ni Hua. In a slight surprise, Ni Hua chose to play the a6 slav. This variation seems to be in fashion once again as GM Vladimir Malakhov used it with a lot of success during his deep run into the semifinals of the Fide World Cup (he should be in the final). I chose to play the ultra slow 5.Bd2. The next few moves were pretty standard until we reached the following position.



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By Hikaru Nakamura on 11/30/2009 6:27 AM

Hello out there to everyone once again. Before I talk about the recent tournament in Norway, I would like to take a moment to explain why I have not been blogging much of lately. Recently, I have become extremely busy boht in terms of chess and other events in Seattle. As such, I feel that the quality of my recent blogs has been lacking due to the limited amount of time which I have had to communicate my thoughts. My personal feeling is that any blog or book for that matter should be quality over quantity. For the first time in over a month, I have a chance to settle down and not feel rushed.

Towards the end of the disaster in Amsterdam, I received word about the possibility of participating in the BN Bank Blitz this November in Norway. After a brief communication, I agreed to play as I felt it would be a good opportunity to warm up before London and get another crack at Magnus Carlsen. The tournament had an interesting format with sixteen players; ten invited and six qualifiers from local tournaments around...

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By Hikaru Nakamura on 11/2/2009 12:02 PM

Hello everybody! Unfortunately, I have been extremely busy with life (not chess related). This past weekend was also extremely busy as I was up in beautiful Vancouver at a book launch party for Bullet Chess: One Minute To Mate. This will be the subject of a blog shortly, but for now I will give everyone a simple recap of the US Chess League weeks 8 and 9. In week 8 we were paired against the Tennessee Tempo. Unfortunately for the Tempo, they chose to run their two GM lineup when I was not around, so they were huge favourites. However, in typical Tennessee style, (look at them Titans) they also managed to lose when they ran that lineup as FM Mikhailuk came up huge as he crushed GM Shabalov in a classical Sicilian. This time around, the Tempo went with a much softer lineup as they featured Ron Burnett on board 1 and Todd Andrews on board 2 followed by Peter Bereolos and John Bick closing it out. In my game, there is not much to say other than the fact that Burnett clearly was not prepared for the game and went astray...

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By Hikaru Nakamura on 10/24/2009 3:45 PM

Hello to everyone once again, my apologies for not blogging recently, but I have been extremely busy on many fronts. A few weeks ago, I finished competing in the European Club Cup Championship. At the start of the tournament, I got off to a rather bumpy start as I lost a marginally worse endgame against Peter Svidler with Black. To be fair, he played the endgame very precisely while my attempts at setting up a fortress failed. After this disappointing loss, I beat a 2400 IM and then followed this up with a draw against Czech Grandmaster, Viktor Laznicka in the Kings Indian. at this point, having scored 2.5/4 I was not doing very well. Luckily, I started to regain my form as I followed this up with a nice wins against GM Sergei Zhigalko (2601) and GM Milos Pavlovic (2533). Having recovered from the bad start, I more or less played a forced drawn line against GM Alexander Grischuk in the last round. Overall, I was more or less satisfied with my play except for the game against Svidler. Thus, I cannot complain as...

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By Hikaru Nakamura on 10/4/2009 10:27 PM

Good morning to everyone out there from Macedonia, where it is approximately 4 AM local time. After having a nearly a perfect September, it is time to return to chess. As most everyone knows, I fell violently ill right from the start in Amsterdam and never recovered. Thankfully, this happened at the end of my long streak of traveling as I am pretty sure I would have gone and dropped more points in any following tournaments ala Ivanchuk. After this long recovery time, I feel quite rested and fresh. Since I noticed some people clamoring for my thoughts on other chess events, I will oblige the fans and talk about some chess for a change!

A few weeks back, there was the 25th anniversary match between Kasparov and Karpov. In general, other than the obvious importance of it having been 25 years since their legendary match in 1984, I did not really see any point as I thoroughly expected Karpov to get thrashed. Having seen and played against Karpov in a few tourneys over the last year, I have nothing but respect...

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By Hikaru Nakamura on 9/25/2009 1:31 PM

Greetings to everyone out there from beautiful and sunny Seattle as the extended summer continues out here. Unfortunately, I have been quite busy since my last blog which is why I have slowed down considerably on my postings. However, true to form for the fans, I am going to try and add more information in general. Here goes nothing, hope everyone enjoys the reading!

UW 16 USC 13

Last Saturday, I went to the Huskies-Trojans game with my good pal, Elston "Troy" Cloy II. Shockingly enough, despite having gone to a couple pro football games as well as a zillion hockey and baseball games, I had never gone to a college football game. Due to my close proximity to the university district and village, it made sense to jump at this opportunity especially as the Trojans were in town for the biggest game of the season. Since I had made it quite well known that I was planning to go to the game, I chatted briefly with my friend IM John Donaldson (also a player and manager of the San Francisco Mechanics in the...

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