Nakamura to Face Aronian in Chess960 Final
July 29, 2009
U.S. Champion Hikaru Nakamura will face Levon Aronian in the Chess960 final in Mainz, Germany. Update: Nakamura wins final vs. Aronian!

Chess 960 is a chess variant , also called Fischer Random chess, in which the pieces are shuffled are on the back row, but castling possibilities are always allowed. After day 1, it appeared that Levon Aronian was going to dominate the four-player double round-robin but Nakamura rebounded in day two, scoring three wins in a row.

Here is one of them, a quick win over Victor Bologan, which began from the following position:

StartNakaBologan.jpg
1. e4 f5 2. e5 Bd5 3. f4 e6 4. Bf2 Qf7 5. Qe2 b5 6. a3

after6.a3.jpg
6...O-O 7. O-O d6 8. Nd3 a5 9. Nb3 a4 10. Nd4 Ne7 11. Rfe1 Ng6 12. g3 Bxh1 13. Kxh1 c5 14. Nf3 c4 15. Nb4 dxe5

after8...de5.jpg
16. Nc6 e4 17. Ng5 Qb7 18. Qh5 h6

after11..h6.jpg
19. Qxg6 hxg5 20. Qxe6+ Kh7 21.fxg5 Rbe8 22. g6+ Kh6 23. Qd5 Nc7 24. Qd7 Rf6 25. Be3+ Kxg6 26. Ne7+ 


after19.re7.jpg
 

26...Rxe7 27. Qxe7 Nd5

1-0


As he mentioned in his most recent blog entry, Nakamura is also a fan of Seirawan chess.

You see live games on the Internet Chess Club (Also finger Mainz960-09 for games.) See more details on the chessbase report and see the official website.

Nakamura's European rampage will take a quick break as he jets back to America to visit the U.S. Open, where he will be conducting a simultaneous exhibition on August 7th. Then he's back across the Atlantic again for the Rising Stars vs. Experience match (August 20-31, Amsterdam). Italian-American Fabiano Caruana will also be playing on the rising stars team, and Ian Rogers will be providing live CLO coverage from the scene.