Nakamura Wins 7th Speed Chess Grand Prix

PeterDoggers

Updated: Jul 15, 2020, 5:49 AM | 16 | Chess Event Coverage

GM Hikaru Nakamura won the seventh Speed Chess Championship Grand Prix and his second in a row after beating Russian GM Sanan Sjugirov in the knockout final. Nakamura is now also the new leader in the overall Grand Prix standings.

The next Speed Chess Championship Grand Prix will be played on July 21 at 10 a.m. Pacific / 19:00 Central Europe.

The seventh Speed Chess Grand Prix tournament was held on Tuesday, July 14, with 875 participants. Just like the week before, it was GM Fabiano Caruana who won the Swiss part, this time as the only player with a 9.0/10 score.

The live broadcast of the tournament.

Like last week, Caruana (@FabianoCaruana) comfortably reached the final eight with a quick draw in round 10, this time against GM Daniil Dubov. The latter might have miscalculated the tiebreak situation because he ended in 12th place.

The round before, Caruana had beaten GM Anish Giri. The Dutchman played his second Speed Chess Championship while streaming on his new YouTube channel (and using the handle @AnishOnYouTube). He seems to be able to combine chess and talking very well—but not in this game:

The eight players who qualified for the knockout part were Caruana, Nakamura, GM Parham Maghsoodloo, GM Sanan Sjugirov, GM Dmitry Andreikin, FM Christopher Guzman, GM Baadur Jobava, and GM Sergey Karjakin.

July 14 Speed Chess Grand Prix | Swiss Final Standings (Top 20)

Rk	Fed	Title	Username	Name	Score	SB
1		GM	@FabianoCaruana	Fabiano Caruana	9	56.5
2		GM	@Hikaru	Hikaru Nakamura	8.5	56.75
2		GM	@Parhamov	Parham Maghsoodloo	8.5	56.75
4		GM	@Sanan_Sjugirov	Sanan Sjugirov	8.5	54.25
5		GM	@2Vladimirovich90	Dmitry Andreikin	8.5	53.75
6		FM	@Mfcyryd	Christopher Guzman	8.5	52.75
7		GM	@exoticprincess	Baadur Jobava	8.5	52.25
8		GM	@SergeyKarjakin	Sergey Karjakin	8.5	51.25
9		GM	@amintabatabaei	Amin Tabatabaei	8.5	49.75
10		IM	@wonderfultime	Tuan Minh Le	8.5	48.75
11		GM	@penguingm1	Andrew Tang	8.5	48.75
12		GM	@Duhless	Даниил Dubov	8.5	45
13		GM	@Grischuk	Alexander Grischuk	8	53
14		GM	@Oleksandr_Bortnyk	Oleksandr Bortnyk	8	50
15		GM	@Batica1984	Milos Perunovic	8	48.5
16		GM	RaunakSadhwani2005	Raunak Sadhwani	8	43.75
17		GM	rasmussvane	Rasmus Svane	8	43.25
18		GM	Fandorine	Maksim Chigaev	8	42.5
19		GM	ChessWarrior7197	Nodirbek Abdusattorov	8	42
20		GM	GMHess	Robert L. Hess	8	42

Caruana beat Karjakin in the first mini-match (consisting of one game) but then surprisingly was eliminated by Sjugirov. After winning his black game, he reached a position he could never lose as White, but then he fell for the last trick Black had available:

After such a tragic loss it's always tough to play more chess, and Caruana ended up losing the bullet tiebreak. Sjugirov then didn't stand a chance against Nakamura in the final. Here's their first game:

Nakamura won the $1,000 first prize and 12 GP points while Sjugirov took second ($500 and eight GP points). Caruana and Maghsoodloo (@Parhamov) both won $200 and four GP points, while the losing quarterfinalists each earned $100 and two GP points.

WIM Anna Afonasieva (@annazero) won the $100 prize for being the top-scoring female player.

Below are the current Speed Chess Championship Grand Prix standings. At the end of the season, the players with the four best scores will advance to the Speed Chess Championship to be hosted later this year.

Speed Chess Championship Grand Prix | Standings After July 14 (Top 20)

#	Fed	Title	Name	Username	Swiss Points	Bonus Points	Overall Points
1		GM	Hikaru Nakamura	@Hikaru	34.5	26	60.5
2		GM	Vladislav Kovalev	@vladislavkovalev	49.5	8	57.5
3		GM	Parham Maghsoodloo	@Parhamov	42.5	8	50.5
4		GM	Sergey Karjakin	@SergeyKarjakin	33.5	10	43.5
5		GM	Vladislav Artemiev	@Sibelephant	25	16	41
6		GM	Fabiano Caruana	@FabianoCaruana	34	6	40
7		GM	Vladimir Fedoseev	@Bigfish1995	25.5	14	39.5
8		GM	Dmitry Andreikin	@2Vladimirovich90	25.5	14	39.5
9		IM	Tuan Minh Le	@wonderfultime	33.5	4	37.5
10		GM	Alireza Firouzja	@Firouzja2003	25.5	10	35.5
11		GM	Haik Martirosyan	@Micki-taryan	25.5	10	35.5
12		GM	Alexander Grischuk	@Grischuk	32.5	2	34.5
13		IM	Hans Niemann	@IMHansNiemann	32.5	2	34.5
14		GM	Grigoriy Oparin	@OparinGrigoriy	17.5	16	33.5
15		GM	Rasmus Svane	@rasmussvane	24.5	4	28.5
16		GM	Raunak Sadhwani	@RaunakSadhwani2005	24	4	28
17		GM	Aravindh Chithambaram	@Aravindhchess1999	24	2	26
18		GM	Amin Tabatabaei	@amintabatabaei	17.5	8	25.5
19		GM	Alexander Zubov	@Alexander_Zubov	16.5	8	24.5
20		GM	Giga Kuparadze	@GigaQuparadze	24	0	24

Games final eight

The Speed Chess Championship Grand Prix is presented by Gambit, where you can play classic games like Reversi, Backgammon, and Oh Ship with players from around the world.

More information about the Speed Chess Championship Grand Prix can be found here.

Peter Doggers

Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”

Peter's first book The Chess Revolution is out now!

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