Nakamura Steels The Show

He's been knocking at the door for the past year - but now he's kicked the door down! The flamboyant US No.1, Hikaru Nakamura turned in the performance of his life to deservedly win his first supertournament, as he took outright first place at the 73rd edition of the Tata Steel Chess Tournament in Wijk aan Zee.

Nakamura, 23, was one of the big movers and shakers after his supremely positive performance, as he stole the show ahead of a truly stellar field. His +5 (6 wins and 1 loss) score of 9/13 (TPR: 2879) not only rewarded him with the title ahead of Anand, Carlsen, Aronian and Kramnik, but it also moved him up to world No.7 on the live rating list with a seismic gain of nearly 23 points; making him just a couple of points adrift now of both Topalov and Karjakin, world No's 6 and 5, respectively.

And although Walter Browne and Yasser Seirawan shared the title at Wijk in 1980 (before the tournament was an elite event), Nakamura's win can arguably be compared to that of being the best US performance in an elite round robin event since the days of Bobby Fischer.

The only bragging rights Magnus Carlsen can take from his performance is that of best attack of the tournament, as he inflicted on Nakamura his only loss at Wijk (see Alex Yermolinsky's GOTD below). But that aside, Nakamura's dominance now makes for interesting days ahead, as many will now see him as a potential (and credible) world championship challenger - the Nakamura-Carlsen rivalry look set to be one that will run for years to come.

The Chess.FM commentary team of GMs Yasser Seirawan, Peter Svidler, Joel Benjamin, Larry Christiansen, Alex Yermolinsky, Ronen Har-Zvi, John Fedorowicz, Loek van Wely, and Miguel Illescas followed all the action from start to finish of Nakamura's historic win. Below we've included for non-members the first 5 minutes of all of our Game of the Day service and the first 20 minutes of the Svidler, van Wely, Benjamin and Illescas days in the commentary booth - and you can join ICC now by clicking here to listen to all of those GOTD recaps, plus full re-broadcasts (nearly 5 hours each!) of two of the three Svidler days plus the van Wely and Illescas days.

Final Standings

Game of the Day

Rd Date Commentator Game WATCH FREE 13 Sun, 30 Jan GM Miguel Illescas BONUS - FULL SHOW 13 Sun, 30 Jan GM Yasser Seirawan IM Illya Nyzhnyk vs. GM Daniele Vocaturo 12 Sat, 29 Jan GM John Fedorowicz GM Magnus Carlsen vs. GM Wang Hao 11 Fri, 28 Jan GM Peter Svidler BONUS - FULL SHOW 11 Fri, 28 Jan GM Peter Svidler GM Ian Nepomniachtchi vs. GM Hikaru Nakamura 10 Wed, 26 Jan GM Yasser Seirawan GM Hikaru Nakamura vs. GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave 9 Tues, 25 Jan GM Larry Christiansen GM Levon Aronian vs. GM Alexei Shirov 8 Sun, 23 Jan GM Alex Yermolinsky GM Magnus Carlsen vs. GM Hikaru Nakamura       7 Sat, 22 Jan GM Gregory Kaidanov GM Hikaru Nakamura            GM Jan Smeets 6 Fri, 21 Jan Loek Van Wely BONUS - FULL SHOW 6 Thu, 21 Jan GM Yasser Seirawan GM Erwin L’Ami vs. GM Hikaru Nakamura 5 Thu, 20 Jan GM Alex Yermolinsky GM Jan Smeets vs. GM Vishy Anand 4 Tue, 18 Jan GM Larry Christiansen GM Vishy Anand vs. GM Wang Hao 3 Mon, 17 Jan GM Joel Benjamin GM Magnus Carlsen vs. GM Anish Giri 2 Sun, 16 Jan GM Peter Svidler BONUS - FULL SHOW 2 Sun, 16 Jan GM Peter Svidler GM Anish Giri vs. GM Jan Smeets 1 Sat, 15 Jan GM Peter Svidler BONUS - FULL SHOW 1 Sat, 15 Jan GM Alex Yermolinsky GM Hikaru Nakamura  vs.          GM Alexander Grischuk

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