Rd. 8 - GM Magnus Carlsen vs. GM Hikaru Nakamura

Written and annotated by GM Alejandro Ramirez.

 

The last game of the day, and certainly not the least, was the game between Carlsen and Nakamura. The American player very clearly was in trouble straight out from the opening. Kasparov came around to talk to the game with me and he was saying how it was a position that Carlsen and him had analyzed a few years ago, and that Black wasn’t lost, but it was very very bad. Slowly, the World Champion pushed Nakamura around, got a winning position… and then made mistake after mistake. Somehow Nakamura was able to create counter chances in what should have been a totally lost position. Eventually, after a long torture, he survived.