Nakamura vs. McShane, Photo Cathy Rogers
GM Hikaru Nakamura walked away from today's game at the London Chess Classic saying only "It's bad."
3894
11...Be6 was McShane's new idea, though he admitted that he had forgotten what to play after 12.Be7?!. (13...Kxf8! would have been very strong.) From then on the game was very double-edged, though after Nakamura failed to play 18.a3, most of the chances were with Black. Even so, Nakamura could have drawn the resulting endgame with 42.Re8, but he continued playing extremely fast and fell to defeat.
Kramnik was within a few moves of defeat against Howell but the English junior missed a few finesses in the endgame and Kramnik drew, albeit with difficulty.
3893
Carlsen won his third victory of the tournament against Ni Hua.
3895
Carlsen is now ahead by three points of Kramnik using the soccer scoring system with three points for a win and one for a draw. In the final two games, Carlsen faces Adams and Short, while Nakamura plays Howell in round six and Kramnik in round seven.
Catch the games live on the official website or the Internet Chess Club (round six at 9 AM EST, round seven at 7 AM EST). Hikaru Nakamura also posted a halfway recap on his own blog. Also see an index of videos by Macauley Peterson and yesterday's in-depth CLO report by GM Ian Rogers.