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.

Rd	Date	Commentator	Game	ICC MEMBERS	NON-MEMBERS
13	Sun, 30 Jan	GM Miguel Illescas	FULL SHOW
10	Sun, 26 Jan	GM Joel Benjamin	FULL SHOW
6	Sun, 21 Jan	GM Loek Van Wely	FULL SHOW
2	Sun, 16 Jan	GM Peter Svidler	FULL SHOW
1	Sat, 15 Jan	GM Peter Svidler	FULL SHOW

Game of the Day

Rd	Date	Commentator	Game	WATCH	FREE
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	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	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	GM Anish Giri vs. GM Jan Smeets
1	Sat, 15 Jan	GM Alex Yermolinsky	GM Hikaru Nakamura vs. GM Alexander Grischuk

Final Standings

N	Name	FED	FIDE	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	0	1	2	3	4	PTS	TPR
1	Nakamura, Hikaru	USA	2751	.	½	0	½	½	1	½	½	1	½	1	1	1	1	9	2880
2	Anand, Viswanathan	IND	2810	½	.	½	½	½	½	½	1	½	1	½	½	1	1	8½	2844
3	Carlsen, Magnus	NOR	2814	1	½	.	½	1	½	0	½	0	1	½	1	1	½	8	2821
4	Aronian, Levon	ARM	2805	½	½	½	.	½	½	½	½	1	½	1	½	½	1	8	2821
5	Kramnik, Vladimir	RUS	2784	½	½	0	½	.	½	1	½	½	½	½	1	½	1	7½	2793
6	Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime	FRA	2715	0	½	½	½	½	.	½	½	1	½	½	½	1	1	7½	2798
7	Giri, Anish	NED	2686	½	½	1	½	0	½	.	½	0	1	½	½	½	½	6½	2744
8	Ponomariov, Ruslan	UKR	2744	½	0	½	½	½	½	½	.	½	0	1	½	1	½	6½	2739
9	Nepomniachtchi, Ian	RUS	2733	0	½	1	0	½	0	1	½	.	1	½	½	0	½	6	2711
10	Wang, Hao	CHN	2731	½	0	0	½	½	½	0	1	0	.	1	1	½	½	6	2711
11	Grischuk, Alexander	RUS	2773	0	½	½	0	½	½	½	0	½	0	.	½	1	0	4½	2627
12	L'Ami, Erwin	NED	2628	0	½	0	½	0	½	½	½	½	0	½	.	½	½	4½	2638
13	Smeets, Jan	NED	2662	0	0	0	½	½	0	½	0	1	½	0	½	.	1	4½	2635
14	Shirov, Alexei	ESP	2722	0	0	½	0	0	0	½	½	½	½	1	½	0	.	4	2600

Featuring Chess.FM

One of the great benefits of ICC (apart from all the top-notch online play and tournaments) in recent years has been the upgrade in our Chess.FM service - many members agree that the live Chess.FM commentary and GOTDs from our elite tournament coverage alone is worthy of their membership fee. As a member you have access all through the year to our regular weekly shows: Ronens Opening Survey (Mondays), Chess Talk (Tuesdays), Attack With LarryC (Wednesdays), Boris Altermans Gambit Guide (Thursdays), Joel Benjamins Game of the Week (Fridays), and Dan Heisman's Improve Your Chess (Saturdays).

And for non-ICC members to tune-in to one of the most popular Chess.FM regular weekly shows, we have made a recent Hikaru Nakamura appearance on Chess Talk for you to view to find out exactly what you are missing by not being a member of ICC!

Date	Host	Guest		FREE
June 30	John Watson	GM Hikaru Nakamura

John Watson

Nakamura

This week (Tue., June 30) on Chess Talk with IM John Watson will be ICC legend, GM Hikaru Nakamura.

In his prodigy days, Hikaru broke every Bobby Fischer age-group record save for that of youngest US champion. But he's now matured as a player and beginning to make a big name for himself on the elite international circuit with his performances at the Tal Memorial and London Chess Classics - and now his first supertournament win recently at the 2011 Tata Steel Chess Tournament.

This show was originally aired back in June of 2009 when Hikaru was beginning to make his debut appearances at supertournaments - and now Chess.FM expects Hikaru back on Chess Talk soon to talk about his historic win at Wijk. So make sure you join ICC now for that not-to-be-missed follow-up appearance!

ICC's iphone app has been updated, and still FREE!!

We've been hard at work making your "Chess at ICC" app even better, using your feedback to add new features and fix bugs! This update adds the most popular requests and addresses issues you've reported to us.

What's New in this version:

- Seek a game with upper-lower rating limits, to control who can accept your match offer.

- Ability to observe, follow and chat with any user on the club.

- New chat system. Chat in the most popular chat rooms and with any user on the club. Maintain a chat history.

- "Observe Games" system redesigned. Now it's possible to observe ALL popular categories and save your favorite category for easy access.

- Game chat redesigned so you can chat and watch the game at the same time.

- Ability to review previous moves while observing a game.

- Ability to see the entire move list and go to any move during any games.

- Timestamp toggle. Users can now turn off timestamp to reduce bandwidth, which is useful when the signal is weak.

- Stability fixes for reported crashes.

- Other bug fixes.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/chess-at-icc/id380526850?mt=8

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