Hikaru Nakamura is well known to be one of the strongest fast chess players in history. Today he started the defense of his reputation at the SportAccord Mind Games. The first four rounds of the rapid competition were played, and Nakamura already sits at the top of the table with 3,5/4.
He started with victories against Viktor Bologan and the local young star Ding Liren. In round 3 Nakamura won the US derby match against Kamsky. It was in round 4 where Hikaru missed perfect opportunity in the game against Aronian. The Armenian got in deep time trouble at move 20, but Nakamura could not find a solution to the opposite color bishops game, thus signing a draw.
The importance of Nakamura’s score and direct matches in day 1 are underlined by the standings.
Ding Liren sits at second position together with Laurent Fressinet with 3,0/4, while Kamsky is sharing fourth with Grischuk and Leko with 2,5/4. On the other end of the spectrum are Mamedyarov and Ivanchuk, with 0 and 1,0 points respectively. Scroll down for the full standings.
In the women section of the SportAccort Mind Games rapid, the ex World Champion Yifan Hou emerged sole leader with 3,5/4. The Chinese prodigy played with some of the strongest contenders in this year’s edition, managing to win against Anna Zatonskih, Anna Muzychuk, Kateryna Lahno, and shared the point with her long term rival Humpy Koneru.
In the general standings Koneru and Lahno are with 3,0/4, while Cramling, Muzychuk, and Stefanova are sharing fourth with 2,5/4. Scroll down for the full standings.
Nakamura is clearly better than the rest of the players on this planet.
Just keep him away from Nanking!