Hikaru Nakamura's Blog

Montreal Recap

dbfrey@gmail.com — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 16:55:00 GMT

Hello again! Once again, I find myself apologizing for not keeping up with the blog during the tournament, but I was quite busy. The last time I blogged was after I drew against GM Charbonneau in round 4 of the tournament. At that point I was doing quite well, tied for the lead with GMs Charbonneau and Shulman. Unfortunately, in round 5 I proceeded to play very badly. Against IM Zugic, I played quite a bit too aggressively instead of being content with a draw. Somewhere around here, I realized that I was off form. Unfortunately, the rest day did little good for me as I proceeded to play a highly dubious Rauzer setup against GM Nataf and was close to losing if not lost in the final position. After this, I played against GM Mark Bluvshtein whom I have known since we played way back in the World Youths in 2001. The game was quite balanced, although I obtained a small initiative out of the opening. This eventually led to an endgame where I was a pawn up, but due both to feeling slightly sick (more on that later) as well as being tired, I was unable to convert. All in all, this game was when I realized that it just was not going to be my tournament. In the 8th round I was black against GM Kovalyov who clearly seemed very unprepared for my Dutch. After the first 10 moves and a fairly standard position, Kovalyov proceeded to fall apart incredibly quickly and overlooked my nice tactical shot 25...Nf2! After this the rest was fairly simplistic and I won with relative ease. Unfortunately, by the time round 9 rolled around I was feeling extremely sick and barely managed to salvage a draw against GM Maze. All in all, the tournament was not my best, but I cannot complain considering how much worse things could have ended. I probably lost 5-6 points, so I will be 2698 or the next list I think.

In other news, I will be playing in Gjovik, Norway at the beginning of the new year in a 4 player rapid tournament with Carlsen,Svidler and Agdestein. For right now though, I am going to rest up and try to get over the cold I picked up in Montreal and gear up for the fall/winter season of 2008/09 when I will be very busy with many different tournaments. For more info on upcoming events, just check out the events section on the webpage. Shortly, I will also be doing my monthly interview starting off with the first one in September.

Until next time!
Hikaru

Montreal Rounds 3&4

dbfrey@gmail.com — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 15:31:00 GMT

Hello again everyone! I did not have a chance to post a blog yesterday as I was out exploring Montreal for the first time since I arrived on Sunday. I spent much of the morning walking along various paths of the Mont Royal which has some great natural beauty and spectacular views. After going up the Mont Royal, I went to Old Montreal and walked along some of the nice streets and shops which are quite crowded with tourists. One of the interesting things I find about Montreal is that it very much reminds me of France with both the language as well as the whole atmosphere and culture. This is why despite absolutely loving Montreal, I doubt I could ever live here as it is just too reminiscent of Europe. Considering that I almost exclusively play in Europe these days, it is nice to not be in the same sort of area as that in which my profession is spent. This is probably why I will end up staying in Vancouver, BC instead of coming back to the east coast.

Onto the rounds! In round 3 I was paired against IM Thomas "Thoma" Roussel-Roozmon with Black. Prior to this matchup I had only played him once before in the World Open back in 2006. The game itself was fairly dull as we played an Exchange Kings Indian in which I was slowly able to outplay him and win. This time around, I did not feel like having to grind as much, so I chose to play the Dutch instead. He surprised me with 2.d3 after which I played the slightly dubious 2...Nf6 (d6 was better). After this choice, the game became fairly complicated with the position being around equal. Despite our own evaluations, Rybka had the position as equal until the fatal blunder 23.Rb3. I am sure that there must have been something better than 21...h3, but I have yet to find anything conclusive. However, after 23.Rb3 Rf3 24.Qe2 Rxb3 25.cxb3, I found the extremely strong move 25...e5! After this, the rest was quite easy and I won a few moves later.

In round 4 I was paired with GM Pascal Charbonneau. I have known Pascal going as far back as the North Bay Open in 1999. Surprisingly, despite our many appearances at the same tournaments over the years, we have never actually been paired as far as I can tell. In the game yesterday, Pascal surprised me by playing the Marshall Gambit. From what I saw in the database and from my preparation, Pascal had never played this opening before. This rather unsettled me, so I went for a quiet variation wtih 15. Qe2!? Unfortunately, my rather nice novelty 18.f3 turned out to not be one! Somehow I had overlooked the game Kasimdzhanov-Bacrot, France 2008. The move 18...Nf4! is very strong as the rest leads to a forced draw. 19.Rxe8 Rxe8 20.Ne4 Nh3 21.Kg2 (Not 21.Kh1 Bxg3!! 22.hxg3 Ng5 winning) or (21.Kh1 Bxg3 22.Nxg3 Re1! 23.Nxh5 Rxf1 24.Kg2 Rg1 mate). Alas, after four rounds I have 3/4 and will be playing with Black against Zugic today before the rest day tomorrow. Hopefully I can play well and we shall see what happens.

Au Bientot,

Hikaru

Montreal Round 2

dbfrey@gmail.com — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 17:43:00 GMT

Before, I get right into this post, I'd like to start off by offering my apologies for posting blogs the day after the round. Unfortunately, after the round ends, I am usually quite tired, so I come back to the house, eat dinner and then spend the rest of the evening playing pool or just listening to some great people speak some excellent French. Therefore, it is unlikely I will be posting after rounds end.

Yesterday, I was paired against American GM Varuzhan Akobian. I first remember seeing Akobian pop up on the American chess scene around 2001-2002. It was during this time that he emigrated from Armenia to the US and chose to live in Los Angeles. Akobian stalled somewhat after his big run during that time, but due to some good results (Gibraltar,Australia) he has improved his rating significantly to the 2600+ mark. During these past years, we have had many matchups with the overall score being +1 for him from 5 games. The lone decisive game was in the Imre Konig Memorial way back in 2002. Since then we have split the following four matchups. Onto the game!

In the game the opening was a French defense with Akobian employing his favorite variation 3...dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nd7 (we've had 3 games with this line already) after which I followed up with 5.Nf3 Ngf6 6.Bd3!? This was definitely a surprise to Varuzhan as he used quite some time before playing 6...c5. The game then went 7.Nxf6 Nxf6 8.Be3!? Although I did not know whether I would get this variation, I had done significant preparation on it before the game. He then decided to play 8...Qc7 and it was fairly standard until move 16 when he erred with 16...Nd5? If he had chosen to play 16...Rfd8 17.g5 Qf4 then the game would have remained roughly equal. However after this mistake I capitalized very quickly with 17.Qe4! leading to an unpleasant endgame. Although there were definitely some chances in this endgame, from a practical point of view it is very hard to defend and I was able to win. For further analysis on the game, you can check the games section which I will be adding this game to shortly.

After two rounds, I now have 1.5/2 and am tied for first. Today I will be playing Canadian IM Thomas "Thoma" Roussel-Roozmon with Black and we shall see what happens. Check back tomorrow for an update on today's game. There is also a chance I will give a little commentary on my games via ICC as well, so make sure to check both this website but also ICC.

Hikaru!

Montreal Round 1

dbfrey@gmail.com — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 14:03:00 GMT

Well, hmm, where to start? I arrived in Montreal the afternoon before yesterday on a surprisingly short flight from New York (1 1/2 hours). Overall the first day was nice as I am staying with the Charbonneau's, his great sisters and mum who I have not seen in years. So I had a pretty good day to start, but that was before the tournament began. Yesterday, I was paired with Black against fellow American Grandmaster and current US Champion Yury Shulman. Although I was feeling good for most of the day, I proceeded to play the game like a total beginner. It started when I simply forgot a move order in the opening by playing 9...0-0? instead of 9...Nfd7 which was correct. Unfortunately for me, Yury found the right idea by playing 10.Nd2 Nfd7 11.Nd3! The point being that unlike the main variation with 9...Nfd7 10.Nd3 dxc4 where I am up a pawn, here the knight on d2 protects c4. However, despite my horrible mistake, I proceeded to find some play with 10...b5 11.c5 e5!?. Later on, I got a slightly worse position and was worse until Shulman decided to become overly aggressive (after declining a draw offer) by playing 26.g4?! following it up with 27.Bh3 which was even worse. After this I obtained a completely winning position only to overlook that in the final set of moves with 33...Qe6 followed by 34...Rd2 and 35...g3, that it leads to absolutely nothing as in the final position Qh2 Kf1 Qf2?? Bxf2 seems to win a free queen. Alas, not a very inspiring game for either of us, but a fair result. Today I will play GM Akobian, so hopefully I can play better and have a good result.
Until next time!

Hikaru

Japan Recap, ICC Recap

dbfrey@gmail.com — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 00:24:00 GMT

Ohaio gozaimasu from Japan! The tournament reached its finale yesterday as I won again to finish on 7/7. Overall, I did not have to face anyone particularly strong as the second highest ranked player, FM Akira Watanabe 2356 (Japan's Number 1) did not win his sixth round game to force a penultimate showdown. Therefore, I cruised and probably am sitting right at 2700 Fide now. I'll just wait to see what the actual numbers are come October. For now though, I am going to shift my focus to the Montreal International Round Robin since it is my last rated event before the October Fide rating list. In general though, I find that paying too much attention to ratings (Live Top Ratings in particular) is quite a distraction and not worth the stress or effort to look. My attitude is just to play every game one at a time and see where you end up in the end. I would like to once again extend my thanks to Ms. Watai the head of the Japanese Chess Association for inviting me for the 3rd year in a row. Although the competition itself has not been overly tough, it is always nice to be able to relax, win a tournament and socialize with new people. Hopefully I will be back next year so that I can also fulfill another goal of mine which is to climb Mount Fuji!

No doubt most of the people who are reading this blog are from ICC, so I will mention my brief blitz session today. There are many detractors who choose to say plenty of less than respectful things when I decide to play out a drawish position. First of all, people must understand this is ICC, not over the board chess. Secondly, there is no RULE against playing on in drawn positions on ICC no matter how drawn it is. In general, I find that "anything goes" on ICC. Plenty of people will say one thing yet when in the actual situation, they will not follow their own words. When I play on ICC, I just try to have a fun time and enjoy myself, so I would appreciate it if, in the future, others learn to stop taking ICC so seriously. This would help immensely as the atmosphere would be more enjoyable. One last point which I would like to make is that AndrinoGiardino is, without a doubt, Levon Aronian. I do not know the reasoning behind GM Agdestein's comments saying that it was Carlsen, but I am quite certain that it isn't.

My plans for right now are to go shower, finish packing and catch my flight back to New York. I have about four days before I head off to Montreal, so I will try to relax and just do a little more final preparations for the tournament. Also, I will be adding games weekly to the "games" section of my website for those who are interested. If anyone has any feedback in terms of the recent changes (events,games,what's new etc) just let me know.

Hikaru

Japan, Updates

dbfrey@gmail.com — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 22:56:00 GMT

So I won both of my games yesterday to remain perfect with a score of 6/6. Very shortly I will be playing the 7th and final round which I hope to win for obvious reasons. Japan has been another fun and interesting experience for me although the more I come here, the more it seems less and less exotic of a travel destination. That being said, I will always enjoy coming back to my homeland and look forward to it each and every year. The only downside (note to travelers) is that the weather has always been in the mid-high 80's with extreme humidity which makes the 20 minute walk to the playing site rather less than enjoyable to say the least. However, such is life and so far it doesn't seem to be affecting my play.

Since I haven't done much with this website recently, there are several updates to report. On the "homepage" there is the What's New tab with all the most recent news on me. I have also changed the events page slightly so that it now is in a calendar format which I hope makes it slightly more lively. Another big change which will be coming is that I should have a java viewer from which I can upload games. Some might wonder why I am not trying to use a Chessbase format, but the problem is simply that it requires way too much programming. The last note and this is almost certainly the most important one is that I will be starting a monthly interview program. I do not think it will be live at first, (probably mp3 format on the site) but I plan to allow people to submit questions from ICC. I plan to answer 20-30 questions in a 1 hour time frame. If you leave me a message (to smallville) on ICC or simply here too it would be much appreciated. I would blog more, but I actually have to go get ready to play my last round game here in Japan.

Hikaru

Japan Part I

dbfrey@gmail.com — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 21:40:00 GMT

Hello again to all the readers in the blogosphere world. Since there is no live coverage of the tournament I am playing here in Japan, (quite a rarity for me these days ) I will catch everyone up on my results. So far I am 4/4 having played no one particularly strong thus far, but I will probably have to beat a couple of masters today, so anything is possible. The tournament itself is 7 rounds so there are two rounds today (Japan is 13 hours ahead of the US, 16 hours ahead of Vancouver) and then one round tomorrow. Hopefully I can continue to play well and win. Until next time, adieu.

Hikaru

2008 United States Chess League

dbfrey@gmail.com — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Greetings from hot and humid Japan. I will now confirm that I will be playing in the US Chess League for the Seattle Sluggers in the 2008 edition. Last year, I played for the New York Knights. We had some memorable matches and I thoroughly enjoyed the atmosphere. Despite my rather mediocre performance throughout, the team did reasonably well before we lost to Boston in the semifinals. The main reason I have decided to play for Seattle as opposed to New York is the fact that I am residing in Vancouver right now, so it makes sense to play for Seattle which is only a few hours away. This year, I will try to do better than last year and I look forward to having a good result and Go Sluggers!

Cheers,
Hikaru!

Mainz Recap&Japan

dbfrey@gmail.com — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 04:03:00 GMT

Hello everyone! I haven't blogged in some time, so I will give some general updates on my plans for the future.

Obviously, my most recent tournaments were in Mianz, Germany where I won the Fischer Random tournament. Overall, I felt like I played very well for the first part of the tournament first 6-7 rounds, then I fell apart. Despite being in great condition these days, I think that the fact that I was unable to get on the time zone definitely had some effect on me. From the very first day there I started falling asleep around 6-7 PM and waking up at 1 or 2 AM. Throughout the whole tournament this held true as I would play my games and then promptly fall asleep immediately. On some level this almost certainly affected me, but alas I'll get back to the tournament itself. The first truly bad game I played was against GM Evgenij Najer who I have played quite a few times in the past although none of the games were within the last two years. In the game itself, I was worse out of the opening, then dropped a pawn for complications which only led to me being dead lost. However, he then proceeded to get low on time and made a horrendous blunder which allowed me to win the game. Then in my game against GM Sergei Movsesian, I got a slightly worse position out of the opening before I proceeded to completely outplay him in the middlegame and win comfortably. After this round I was the clear leader with 8.5/9 while the nearest competitors were on 7.5/9. In round 10 I faced GM Arkadij Naiditsch with whom I have a long history. Out of the opening the position was fairly balanced although I was probably slightly worse. Then in the endgame I completely panicked and messed up a slightly worse endgame by losing. This completely opened the field up as Naiditsch was tied while there were a ton of people a half point behind. In the final round I played GM Vladimir Potkin and got a great position out of the opening. As the game drifted through the middlegame and into the endgame, I reached a comfortable position up a pawn and probably winning. Unfortunately, I think proceeded to hallucinate badly and drew my game. This left Naiditsch in position to win the tournament as he was up a queen and winning against Motylev. Amazingly, he blundered badly allowing Motylev a miracle check mate. This allowed GM Movesian to also catch up leading to a three way tie for first place. Luckily for me, my tiebreaks were best so I will be invited to the 4 player closed 960 event next year.

Onto the rapid event. Once again, the field was comprised of the same set of Grandmasters as in the Fischer Random with GMs Movsesian and Eljanov being the top two seeds while I was number three. I started off well scoring 3/3 but then after obtaining a small edge against my countryman GM-elect Vinay Bhat, I badly misplayed it and proceeded to end up in a losing endgame. However, due to the fact that we were both in quite bad time pressure, then game ended up in a draw. After a win in round 5, I was sitting on 4.5/5 after the first day of play. The second day got off to a very interesting start as I was paired against the Swedish legend Ulf Andersson. Amazingly, he didn't show up and the arbiter informed me that he was rather sick. So after this fluke win, I was paired against the Polish GM Thomas Markowski. After playing like a total clown, I was in quite a bit of trouble in the middlegame, being down a pawn and having very little counterplay. However, after a few slight inaccuracies I was able to regain the pawn and reach equality. In the extremely entertaining endgame, I tried very hard to win, but Markowski played accurately and didn't crack under the pressure so the game was a draw. 6/7. In round 8 I played a very fundamentally sound game and beat GM Arutunian from Armenia without any boom bang fireworks. Then came the tragedy. In round 9 on 7/8 and still 1 point out of the lead due to a great start by Nepomniatchi, I was paired against the strong Hungarian GM Zoltan Almasi. The opening was the English Variation in the Najdorf with Almasi going for the early g4 variation. After a standard first 11 moves, I introduced the novelty 11...Ng6!? In a very complicated middlegame I outplayed Almasi and got a great position if not winning after 25 moves. However, I completely self-destructed and hung two pieces in a horrible manner, thus eliminating any chance of winning both tournaments. I still finished off nicely as I beat IM Polzin and GM Buhmann (2nd time) to score 9/11. In one of my next blogs, I will attach the Almasi game with annotations.

With that performance behind me, I am now in Japan getting set to play the Japan League for the 3rd year running and trying to keep my current perfect score (14/14) intact. The tournament will be seven rounds and I look forward to playing some classical chess for the first time in nearly three months. Hopefully I can play well and break 2700 right here and now. Please note that the Live Rating list will almost certainly not have an update on this tournament, so even if I break 2700 here it will not be reported in all likelihood.

Till next time, all the best!
Hikaru

Biel Observations, Mainz, Montreal, French League

dbfrey@gmail.com — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 16:40:00 GMT

Hello again everyone! For the first time in several months, I have actually been following some chess tournaments over the past week and a half, so I will start with my observations on Biel. Obviously Carlsen is the big favourite due to his recent results as well as the opposition of the field. Overall his play has been ok, although not quite what I would expect from someone who is supposed to be number 2 going on number 1 in the world as he got lucky to beat Pelletier and ridiculously lucky against Bacrot in a close to losing position. Carlsen aside, Alekseev seems to be playing solidly as does Dominguez as they are cruising along to see who finishes 2nd. And then there are the other 3. Onischuk seems to be playing reasonably well although losing R+N vs R to Dominguez is disappointing to say the least. Bacrot is having another up and down tournament as he started off horrifically but has bounced back with two straight wins. Pelletier on the other hand is just having a terrible tournament. Yannick is a nice guy, so it is quite unfortunate to see him struggling so mightily in this tournament, but hopefully he can recover before the end. Carlsen will almost certainly win this tournament, barring a massive collapse, so the real question is who will finish 2nd.

Shortly, I will be leaving for Mainz to play in the rapid event as well as the Fischer Random rapid event too. Due to my long break from chess, (7 weeks) and the time I have spent in Vancouver recently, I will not go in with any expectations. My goal is very simply to try and play the best that I can and if it is meant to be, so be it. If not, then I will move on. Although the rapid portion is the most important, it will definitely be interesting to play Fischer Random. The only other time I have played Fischer Random over the board was at a blitz tournament which I won in Virginia back in 2003 during the Millenium Chess Festival (beating Polgar 2-0). As far as the Fischer Random goes, I don't mind the game, however of all the variants of chess which I have come across thus far, I find Seirawan Chess to be the most novel as well as interesting. I do not know yet if ICC will have any live coverage of the games, but either way I will try to play exciting chess as usual.

In my last blog posting, someone left a comment pointing out that I had not listed the field for the round robin tournament which I will be playing in Montreal from August 24-September 2. The reason I did not list the players is because not all of the spots have been confirmed yet. However, for Steve, I will list the players that I know are playing. Shulman, Nataf, Maze, Bluvshtein, Charbonneau, Kovalyov, Roussel, Zugic, myself and one other player. Although the tournament this year is not as strong as in years past, the organizers have said that this is just a transitional year and it will return to the super strong tournament next year. Once again, I will simply try to play well and beat all these Canadians who are living on the wrong coast of the country! :-P I think the average of the tournament will be somewhere around 2550 if I decide to crunch the numbers. My general attitude these days is simply to just enioy life and if improving at chess goes along with it, so be it.

I will also announce here my plans to play in the French League in 2009 with the French Club Evry. Although I had a great opportunity to play for the first time in a foreign league with the club Antibes, the conditions as well as the possibility of winning has been greatly improved for this upcoming year. However, I would like to thank the club for everything they did for me last year and I wish them nothing but the best of luck in the future. The team Evry came very close this last year and has a very strong team with the number 1 French player Vachier-Lagrave, (Bacrot may retake this spot soon if he regains form) as well as another rising French junior Sebastian Feller. Other notables are Yusupov, Chucelov, Chabanon,Hauchard as well as others. The event promises to be fun, and it will certainly be a blast. I will post the dates under the 'Events' tab at the top with the links.

I have not been doing anything special these past few days despite returning to my old stomping grounds in White Plains, New York, USA. Although the weather here is ok, it is quite a bit hotter and also much more humid than it was in Vancouver, so I cannot say that I am necessarily enjoying the weather. Hopefully Germany will offer better weather, but I have not seen whether the temperatures are in the 20's or 30's, (CELSIUS) so I will just go and hope to see sunny skies, hot frauleins and play good chess. What more can one ask for in life? Till next time, keep it real and enjoy the summer!