Hikaru Nakamura, who combines streaming to over a million followers with a comeback to classical chess in his mid-30s, has won the American Cup, a $200,000 knockout including $60,000 for the winner. The defeated finalist, Wesley So, snatched a poisoned pawn and lost his queen in a 19-move decider.
The 35-year-old five-time US champion won through a bruising trilogy of matches at St Louis to defeat his fellow world top-10 GM. Nakamura had hoped that the competition format, two-game mini-matches with progressively accelerating time limits, would allow him to halve his way to his three-minute blitz speciality.
Ir was a trilogy because they were playing a double elimination event where defeated players went to a losers bracket. Nakamura won their first final but So bounced back from the losers bracket and won the second final on demand last Saturday.
That night Nakamura described himself as “very, very upset” and “I didn’t do a recap. I didn’t look at chess. I went out and had some beers, played some pool, and just forgot about everything. It seemed to work out.”
Next day, the third final began with three draws, for most of which So was pressing, but by the fourth game, with the prospect of three-minute blitz looming, he was “tired from playing day in, day out, and I was pushing. I didn’t want to keep playing shorter time controls, So I thought I win or I lose, so I just took the d2 pawn”.
Two moves later, So’s black queen was trapped, with White’s final move being a backward knight retreat, which along with diagonal queen retreats are known to be among the hardest to visualise. The fatal pawn grab was at d2, but the queen was trapped on the classic b2 square, the scene for the Poisoned Pawn Sicilian made famous by Bobby Fischer and, earlier, by Mikhail Botvinnik’s 1935 miniature against Rudolf Spielmann.
The St Louis project is the brainchild of Rex Sinquefield, an investment billionaire who, decades ago, encountered Bobby Fischer on a plane trip, wished him well against the Russians, and later became fascinated by the concept of helping to create another US challenger for the world crown.
In the last decade St Louis has become the world’s most important chess centre, thanks to Sinquefield’s support. The club is open seven days a week, has over 1,000 members, houses the World and US Hall of Fame, and is fronted by a 20-foot high king, formerly the world’s largest chess piece but recently overtaken by a 20.6-foot creation in Sautron, near Nantes, France.
Sinquefield first gave the US Championship a permanent home in St Louis, then introduced the annual Sinquefield Cup, which is also the final of the Grand Chess Tour which has most of its events in Europe. Further, several top US grandmasters now reside in the city, including Fabiano Caruana, who came nearest to fulfilling Sinquefield’s dream when he tied the 2018 world championship match 6-6 with Magnus Carlsen before losing the rapid tiebreaks.
Carlsen’s superiority over his rivals in recent years has been such that the probability of a new US challenger has diminished. US junior talents such as Jeffery Xiong, Samuel Sevian and Awonder Liang failed to reach the world top-20 grandmasters.
However, Carlsen’s abdication as Fide world champion and the imminent Ian Nepomniachtchi v Ding Liren title match have changed the outlook for other contenders. The championship is “amputated” without the Norwegian according to Garry Kasparov, and it is true that all but two or three of the previous 48 title matches or tournaments since 1886 have featured the then world No 1.
The April 2024 Candidates will be played in Toronto, sponsored by the Scheinberg family, which already backs the Fide Grand Swiss in the Isle of Man and whose fortune comes from poker. Canada is the home country of Isai Scheinberg. For the first time, the women’s Candidates will be played alongside the open event.
Nepomniachtchi or Ding will qualify as the 2023 loser, plus three players from the 2023 World Cup, two from the Grand Swiss, one as the best 2023 elite tournament performer, and one as the highest rated player-or second highest if, as seems likely, Carlsen declines to take part.
The absence of Carlsen, together with the prospect of a beatable reigning champion, should be sufficient incentive for Caruana, Nakamura and So to concentrate their efforts and raise their game in preparation for the favourable circumstances of a Candidates staged in North America. The trio are all in their mid-30s, so Toronto may also be their last chance saloon.
Meanwhile, Nepomniachtchi v Ding has its opening ceremony at Astana, Kazakhstan, on Friday 7 April followed by the first of 14 classical games at 10am BST on Sunday 9 April. More information is on the website.
Carlsen is abdicating, but certainly not retiring. The Norwegian’s last dance as reigning world champion will be the Chessable Masters starting 4pm BST on Monday 3 April where the eight-player tournament includes the top four Americans Nakamura, Caruana, So and Levon Aronian. More information is on the website.
Tan Zhongyi and Lei Tingjie are level at 1.5-1.5 with a win apieceand a draw in game three in the six-game all-Chinese women’s Candidates final at Chongquing, to decide who challenges Ju Wenjun for the world title. The all-time No 2 woman, Hou Yifan, who abandoned chess for an academic career, will return to action on 24 April in a strong rapid/blitz event at Astana which also includes the former world champion Vlad Kramnik.
3861: It’s mate in six by 1 Nh6+ Kh8 2 Rf8+! Qxf8 3 Bxg7+! Qxg7 4 Qd8+ and Black resigned in the face of Re8 5 Qxe8+ Qf8 6 Qxf8 mate.
