Nakamura Annihilates Martirosyan
There are blitz players, and then there are players like Hikaru Nakamura, Magnus Carlsen, and...um, computers. Those two guys are in a class by themselves, certainly when it comes to online blitz, a conclusion that was confirmed for the umpteenth time on Thursday when Nakamura absolutely hammered Haik Martirosyan by a lopsided score of 21-5. Martirosyan won only one game, and that was in bullet, while Nakamura was eating a salad, and it took Nakamura making three blunders in the space of about five moves for it to happen - and even then he had to work hard to finish the job.
I emphasize that this is a tribute to Nakamura, not a dig at his opponent. Martirosyan is just 20 years old and rated over 2600 FIDE, he became an IM at 13 or 14 and a GM at 16 or 17, and is a genuinely strong blitz player as well. He's just not in the same class as Nakamura and Carlsen - but who is?
More on the match here.
Next match: Fabiano Caruana vs. Jan-Krzysztof Duda, on Sunday (12 p.m. ET/18:00 CET). In slow or even rapid, I'd make Caruana a significant favorite, but in blitz it's a toss-up. Caruana's best is better than Duda's, but he only visits beast mode and doesn't yet dwell there on a permanent basis.
Reader Comments (1)
I'm surprised a Catholic scholar like yourself didn't make the obvious Martyr-osian pun.
[DM: It's a nice line! It doesn't really work, theologically, but when it comes to me and puns, that's not necessarily a fatal objection. A minor correction, though: while I'm sympathetic to Catholicism (and even more, Orthodoxy, in part but not only because that's the faith of the Greek side of my family), I'm a theologically conservative Lutheran.]