Unive, Round 3: Nakamura Wins Again
Tuesday, October 23, 2012 at 1:08PM
Dennis Monokroussos in Hikaru Nakamura, Unive 2012

Hikaru Nakamura finished the first cycle of the Unive Crown Group in Hoogeveen with his second win in three games. Today he defeated Hou Yifan with the white pieces in a very sharp Schevingen line. After 5...e6 6.g4 h6 7.Rg1 Hou uncorked the new move 7...e5. It looks horrid at first sight, but in fact the concept is known from some similar positions (for example, on move 6). Nakamura went for a standard recipe (8.Bb5+ Nbd7 9.Nf5), and a few moves later the position took on a Perenyi-like character (compare the game sequence 11.g5 Nxe4 12.Nxg7+ Bxg7 13.Nxe4 with the variation 5...a6 6.Be3 e6 7.g4 e5 8.Nf5 h5 9.g5 Nxe4 10.Nxg7+ Bxg7 11.Nxe4).

Resemblances notwithstanding, the position was very tactical and had to be played on its own merits. For a time both players handled the position well, but Hou made a fatal error with 19...Bxc2. There was no way to avoid some sort of material loss, but the right way was 19...Rah8. There Black loses the exchange, but she'll win a pawn and will have a pretty stable position once White's knight is gone. The game continuation netted Black two pawns for a piece, but it wasn't enough - or at least shouldn't have been. Both players handled the subsequent play inaccurately, but the "normal" result came to pass.

The game between Anish Giri and Sergei Tiviakov was a Rubinstein French that finished in an unusual draw. Tiviakov's 22nd move may have looked like a blunder, but his superior minor piece together with White's brittle queenside gave him fully equal chances. If anything, Black could have continued at the end, as a line like 30...Qxe3 31.Rxe3 exf3! 32.Rxe8 fxg2 33.Rg1 (or 33.Rb8+ Kc6 34.Rc1+ Kd7 35.Rxb5 Rxb5 36.Rg1 Rb4 37.Rxg2 Rxd5) 33...Bf1 34.Re1 Kxc6 35.Rgxf1 gxf1Q 36.Rxf1 Rxd4 is marginally in Black's favor. I can't really see Giri losing that, but in the age of Carlsen it's getting a little tougher to know when a position is trivially drawn.

I believe the players are taking tomorrow off, and then finish up on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. After three rounds, only Nakamura has won a game, while only Tiviakov has drawn all his games. (That should suffice to allow anyone to reconstruct everyone's score.)

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