The Internet Chess Club (ICC) is a commercial Internet chess server devoted to the play and discussion of chess and chess variants. ICC currently has over 30,000 subscribing members.^[1] It was the first Internet chess server and is the first and largest pay to play chess server.^[2][3][4]

History[link]

The first Internet chess server (ICS), programmed by Michael Moore and Richard Nash, was launched on 15 January 1992.^[5] Players logged in by telnet, and the board was displayed as ASCII text. Bugs in the server software allowed illegal moves, false checkmates etc. Over time more and more features were added to ICS, such as Elo ratings and a choice of graphical interfaces. The playing pool grew steadily, many of the server bugs were fixed, and players began to have higher expectations for stability.

In 1992, Daniel Sleator (darooha) volunteered to take over as head programmer, and began a large overhaul of the server code. He addressed, among other issues, the frequent complaint that players would lose blitz games on time due to Internet lag. In 1994, he copyrighted the code, and began receiving purchase offers from companies wanting to commercialize the server. On 1 March 1995, Sleator announced his intentions to commercialize ICS, renaming it the Internet Chess Club, or ICC, and charging a yearly membership fee. The membership is free for players with a Grandmaster or International Master title.

Some programmers who had worked on the original ICS became unhappy with what they saw as the commoditization of their project. Led by Chris Petroff, they formed the Free Internet Chess Server (FICS), which to this day continues to allow everyone to access all features for free.^[6]

On 29 May 2007, the World Chess Network was bought by the Internet Chess Club. It was then merged with Chess Live, another Internet chess server acquired by Internet Chess Club from GamesParlor. The result of the acquisition and merger was the formation of World Chess Live, a new Internet chess server that merged features of both services.^[7]

Software[link]

ICC provides the proprietary BlitzIn software, currently at version 3.0.4,^[8] and the Dasher program, currently at version 1.5.4^[9] One major asset of the ICC is that they have the ability to detect computer cheating. Their computer detection team is called SpeedTrap, and their methods of how they detect computer use is not revealed to the public.

There are other software front-ends which work with the ICC system including a number of Java Applet interfaces which allow full-featured play via a browser.

Services available[link]

• chess games against other members or computers
• a highly sophisticated player rating system
• tournaments to participate in
• 29 different variants of chess including Fischer Random, Shatranj, odd variants (time, material),
• live broadcast of tournaments with grandmaster commentary
• watch games involving titled players Fischer Random Chess, Shatranj, Loser's Chess, Crazyhouse etcetera
• challenge grandmasters in regular simultaneous exhibitions
• libraries of games
• recorded lectures
• private lessons (at additional cost)
• chat channels on both chess and non-chess topics
• chess problem bots
• broadcasts on Chess.FM^[10]

Criticism[link]

The commercialisation of ICC was extensively criticised by users, particularly that Daniel Sleator was charging a subscription to use a system that had been developed by others. Following complaints by students they were offered a 50% discount.^[6] The security of the system was criticised in December 2005 with claims that communications between ICC and users could easily be read and that the timestamping could be defeated.^[1]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official site

Young and old playing in a chess club

A chess club is a club formed for the purpose of playing the board game of chess. Chess clubs provide for both informal games and timed games, often as part of an internal competition or in a league.

Organisation[link]

Clubs are usually attached to regional chess associations, which are in turn members of their national federation which will be associated with FIDE, the world governing body of chess.

Club facilities[link]

Chess clubs typically provide:

• Informal, 'friendly', games
• Club and inter-club competitions
• Opportunities to play in one or more leagues organised on a geographical basis
• A personal rating system where the results of inter-club games are rated to enable players to judge their standing and progress
• Coaching by a more knowledgeable chess player and lectures/tuition evenings
• A library of chess books

References[link]

• "The School Chess Club", English Chess Federation, accessed 18 November 2009.

External links[link]

• Directory of English Chess Clubs, English Chess Federation
• Directory of US Chess Clubs, United States Chess Federation

An Internet chess server (ICS) is an external server that provides the facility to play, discuss, and view the board game of chess over the Internet. The term specifically refers to facilities for connecting players through a variety of graphical chess clients located on each user's computer.

History[link]

In the 1970s, one could play correspondence chess in a PLATO System program called 'chess3'. Several users used chess3 regularly; often a particular user would make several moves per day, sometimes with several games simultaneously in progress. In theory one could use chess3 to play a complete game of chess in one sitting, but chess3 was not usually used this way. PLATO was not connected to internet predecessor ArpaNet in any way that allowed mass use by the public, and consequently, chess3 was and still is relatively unknown to the public.

In the eighties, chess play by email was still fairly novel. Latency with email was less than with traditional correspondence chess via paper letters. Often one could complete a dozen moves in a week. As network technology improved, public, widespread use of a centralised server for live play became a possibility.

Michael Moore, of the University of Utah, and Richard Nash recognised the potential of an Internet chess server and created its first incarnation. The official opening date of the ICS was January 15, 1992. John Chanak, William Kish, and Aaron Putnam moved the server to a host machine at Carnegie Mellon University in July 1992, and took over its operation. Although it was buggy and suffered from lag problems, the server was popular among a small group of chess enthusiasts. Over time, many features were added to the ICS, such as ELO ratings and support for graphical clients, and the server was made more stable.^[1]

In late 1992, Daniel Sleator, professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University, took over management of the ICS. He addressed, among other issues, the frequent complaint that players would lose blitz games on time due to Internet lag. In 1994, he copyrighted the code, and began receiving purchase offers from companies wanting to commercialise the server. There were questions about whether Sleator was right to claim that the ICS was his intellectual property, since he did not code the original server, although he had made substantial improvements to its code.

On March 1, 1995, Sleator announced his intentions to commercialise ICS himself, renaming it the Internet Chess Club, or ICC, and charging a yearly membership fee of $US 49 ($US 59.95 in 2007). This announcement was highly controversial among existing members. Many volunteers who had contributed in various ways to the flourishing of ICS were upset that anyone would attempt to profit from their efforts. Active players on the server who were used to the service being provided without charge were not pleased with the addition of the membership fee.

A handful of programmers who had worked on the original ICS became unhappy with what they saw as the commoditization of their project. They formed the Free Internet Chess Server (FICS), and continued to allow everyone to have access to all features for free. In 1996, John Fanning, uncle of Napster founder Shawn Fanning, started Chess.net,^[2] a commercial Internet chess server to rival ICS. Both services remain operational today.

Protocol and access[link]

The ICS protocol is a simple, text-based variant of the TELNET protocol. It is sparsely documented and not standardised, although a few reference implementations and several clients exist.

In theory, an ICS can be accessed from any TELNET client. That said, almost all users choose to play using a graphical client, called an interface. Currently, the most popular interface is XBoard (and its Windows counterpart, WinBoard)^{[citation needed]}. In recent years, however, it has lost ground to newer interfaces like Pychess and eboard^{[citation needed]}.

In addition to standalone clients, many servers also offer Java interfaces that can be used directly from a Web browser. These are popular with new users and users of public computers.

Available servers[link]

Over the years, several Internet chess servers have been created. The Internet Chess Club is currently the largest server but each server has its own strengths and character.^[3] However, Mark Weeks claims that Yahoo! Games accounts for 44% of the players online, compared to 12% for ICC and 7% for Playchess.^[4] Despite Yahoo! Games dominance over the online chess market, there are still new online chess servers being developed.

For a list of servers see Category:Internet chess servers.

See also[link]

• Chess engine
• Computer chess
• Correspondence chess server
• List of Internet chess servers

References[link]

External links[link]

• Internet chess servers, Tim Mann
• History of the Internet Chess Server 1992–1995, Chris Petroff

Hikaru Nakamura
Full name	Hikaru Nakamura
Country	United States
Born	(1987-12-09) December 9, 1987 (age 24) Hirakata, Osaka, Japan
Title	Grandmaster
FIDE rating	2775 (May 2012) (No. 7 in the May 2012 FIDE World Rankings)
Peak rating	2775 (May 2012)

Hikaru Nakamura (中村光, Nakamura Hikaru^?) (born December 9, 1987 in Hirakata, Osaka, Japan) is an American chess Grandmaster (GM). He is ranked among the top seven players in the world by FIDE as of May 2012, and is the current United States Chess Champion.

Nakamura's first supertournament victory came at Wijk aan Zee 2011, finishing clear first ahead of the four top-rated players in the world in a performance described by former World Champion Garry Kasparov as better than any tournament by Bobby Fischer, and the best by an American in more than 100 years.^[1]

Nakamura is the top USCF rated player at 2858, as published on 1 February 2012.

Early life[link]

Nakamura was born in Hirakata, Osaka Prefecture, Japan, to a Japanese father and an American mother. At the age of two, he moved with his parents to the United States. He began playing chess prior to the age of five and was coached by his Sri Lankan stepfather, FIDE Master and chess author Sunil Weeramantry.

Chess prodigy[link]

At age 10 years and 79 days, Nakamura achieved the title of chess master from the United States Chess Federation (USCF), becoming the youngest American ever to earn the title and breaking the record previously set by Vinay Bhat; Nakamura's record stood until 2008 when Nicholas Nip achieved master at the age of 9 years and 11 months. In 1999, Nakamura won the Laura Aspis Prize, given annually to the top USCF rated player under the age of 13. In 2003, at age 15 years and 79 days, Nakamura solidified his reputation as a chess prodigy, becoming the youngest American to earn the grandmaster title, breaking by three months the record of Bobby Fischer. This record has since been broken by Ray Robson.

Chess career[link]

Nakamura is generally regarded as an aggressive player who is reluctant to draw games early, having once said in an interview that "there is no point of taking draws".^[2] He prefers instead to exploit all prospective winning chances, giving him a style of play described by the U.S. Chess Federation as marked by "astonishing creativity...relentless determination...[the making] of unexpected moves and a will to win".

Formerly a resident of White Plains, New York, Nakamura often played in the weekly New York Masters chess tournament at the Marshall Chess Club, which he won several times. He currently lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

In April 2004 Nakamura achieved a fourth-place finish in the "B" group at the Corus tournament at Wijk aan Zee.^[3]

Nakamura qualified for the 2004 world chess championship, contested in Tripoli, Libya, and reached the fourth round, defeating grandmasters Sergey Volkov, Aleksej Aleksandrov, and Alexander Lastin before falling to England's Michael Adams, the tournament's third-seeded participant and eventual runner-up.

On June 20, 2005, Nakamura was selected as the 19th Frank Samford Chess Fellow, receiving a grant of $32,000 to further his chess education and competition.^[4]

Nakamura won the 2005 U.S. Chess Championship (held in November and December 2004), scoring seven points over nine rounds to tie grandmaster Alex Stripunsky for first place. Nakamura defeated Stripunsky in two straight rapid chess playoff games to claim the title and become the youngest national champion since Fischer. Nakamura finished the tournament without a loss and, in the seventh round, defeated grandmaster Gregory Kaidanov, then the nation's top-ranked player.

Following that victory, Nakamura played a challenge match dubbed the "Duelo de Jóvenes Prodigios" in Mexico against Ukrainian grandmaster Sergey Karjakin and defeated his fellow prodigy, 4.5–1.5.^[5]

In November and December 2005 Nakamura entered the FIDE World Chess Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia, seeded 28th (of 128 players) but failed to advance beyond the first round. He lost each of his two games to Indian grandmaster Surya Ganguly.^[6]

In 2006, Nakamura helped the U.S. team win the bronze medal in the International Chess Olympiad at Turin, playing third board behind Gata Kamsky and 2006 U.S. Champion Alexander Onischuk. In the same year he won the 16th North American Open in Las Vegas.^[7]

In January 2007 Nakamura shared second place at the GibTelecom Masters in Gibraltar.^[8] He placed joint first in the tournament the following year, finishing with five straight wins to tie with Chinese GM Bu Xiangzhi, whom he then proceeded to beat in the rapidplay play off.^[9]

In October 2007 Nakamura won the Magistral D'Escacs in Barcelona^[10] and the Corsican circuit rapid chess tournament.^[11]

Nakamura won the 2008 Finite Chess960 Open (Mainz).^[12] In November 2008, he won the Cap d'Agde Rapid Tournament in Cap d'Agde, defeating Anatoly Karpov in the semifinals and Vassily Ivanchuk in the finals.^[13] In February 2009 he came joint third at the 7th Gibtelecom Masters in Gibraltar, again finishing strongly with 4½/5 to end the event on 7½/10.^[14]

2009: Second U.S. Championship and other tournament successes[link]

Nakamura won the 2009 U.S. Chess Championship (St Louis, Missouri, May 2009), scoring 7/9 to take clear first ahead of 17-year-old GM-elect Robert Hess, who shared second with 6½.^[15]

In July 2009, Nakamura won the Donostia-San Sebastian Chess Festival, tying with former FIDE world champion Ruslan Ponomariov with 6.5/9 before defeating Ponomariov in a blitz playoff to win the title over a field including former undisputed world champion Anatoly Karpov, former FIDE world champions Rustam Kasimdzhanov and Ponomariov, 2009 World Junior champion Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, and Peter Svidler among others.^[16] In August 2009, Nakamura became the 960 World Chess Champion, beating GM Levon Aronian 3.5–0.5 in Mainz, Germany.

In November 2009, Nakamura participated in the BNbank blitz tournament in Oslo, Norway. He reached the final by winning all 12 of his games. In the championship, he faced the world No. 2 and reigning World Blitz Champion Magnus Carlsen. Nakamura won the match 3–1, further cementing his reputation as one of the best blitz players in the world, despite having not been invited to the 2009 World Blitz championship.^[17][18]

Nakamura skipped the Chess World Cup 2009 in favor of the London Chess Classic in December 2009. Although he drew with the black pieces against eventual winner Magnus Carlsen and with white against former world champion Vladimir Kramnik, Nakamura failed to win a game during the tournament and ended in seventh place out of eight.^[19]

2010: Gold medalist and top-ten player[link]

Nakamura began 2010 playing first board for the United States at the World Team Chess Championship held in Bursa, Turkey. Nakamura's impressive performance, including a convincing win over world No. 6 and recent Chess World Cup winner Boris Gelfand on the black side of a King's Indian Defense won him the individual gold medal for board one, and led the U.S. to a second place finish behind only Russia.^[20][21]

Nakamura participated in the 2010 Corus chess tournament in Wijk ann Zee. Winning over Loek van Wely, Nigel Short, early leader Alexei Shirov, and drawing against world champion Viswanathan Anand and world No. 1 Magnus Carlsen, Nakamura was in second place after seven rounds.^[22] In the eighth round Nakamura faced former world champion Vladimir Kramnik, to whom he lost playing with the black pieces in a Dutch Defense.^[23] Nakamura had an up-and-down tournament the rest of the way, but finished with a long endgame victory over Sergei Tiviakov. Finishing with an overall +2 record, Nakamura tied for fourth with Viswanathan Anand, behind Carlsen, Shirov, and Kramnik.

In May, Nakamura participated in the 2010 United States Chess Championship in Saint Louis, Missouri attempting to defend his 2009 title. Seeded first, he scored 5/7 points to qualify for the round-robin stage against 1991 champion and current Candidates Player Gata Kamsky, 2006 champion Alexander Onischuk, and 2008 champion Yuri Shulman. In the round-robin stage, he drew Kamsky before losing to Shulman, with the white pieces in both games.^[24] The loss to Shulman eliminated him from defending his 2009 title.

Nakamura competed in the 39th Chess Olympiad, playing board one on the United States team featuring Gata Kamsky, Alexander Onischuk, Yuri Shulman, and Robert Hess. Although he defeated Le Quang Liem and drew Kramnik with the black pieces during the tournament, the U.S. team failed to medal.

From November 5 through 14th, Nakamura competed in the 2010 Mikhail Tal Memorial in Moscow; the field consisted of world No. 3 Levon Aronian, world No. 4 Vladimir Kramnik, world No. 6 Alexander Grischuk, world No. 8 Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, world No. 9 Sergey Karjakin, Pavel Eljanov, Boris Gelfand, Alexei Shirov, and Wang Hao. The average Elo of the field was 2757, making it the third strongest tournament in chess history at the time. Nakamura finished at +1, defeating Eljanov and drawing every other player to finish in a tie for fourth place and missing out on a tie for first place by blundering into a draw in a winning position in the final round against Grischuk.^[25] Nakamura's round two win over Eljanov placed him in the world top-ten in the live ratings for the first time in his career.^[26] Nakamura's performance at this tournament, his first involving an entirely super-elite field allowed him to "force (the chess elite) to respect him", according to noted Russian commentator grandmaster Sergey Shipov.^[27]

From November 16 through 18th, Nakamura made his debut at the 2010 World Blitz Championship in Moscow. Despite a disastrous start and losing four of his first five games to Magnus Carlsen, Vladimir Kramnik, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, and Sergey Karjakin, he recovered to score 5/7 in the second half of the day and finished with a score of 7.5/14, 2.5 points behind coleaders Carlsen and Levon Aronian, whom he defeated in their individual games. On the second day, Nakamura avenged his earlier losses against both Carlsen and Kramnik and scored 8/14, for a total of 15.5/28, three points behind Aronian and a point and a half behind Carlsen.^[28] Nakamura finished with 21.5/38 for fifth place behind Gelfand, Carlsen, Teimour Radjabov and champion Aronian.^[29]

In December 2010 Nakamura finished fourth in the London Chess Classic, among a field including Anand, Carlsen, Kramnik, Michael Adams, Nigel Short, David Howell, and Luke McShane. This included a win with Black against Kramnik, evening their career head-to-head record at 2.5/2.5. The tournament was won by Magnus Carlsen.^[30] Nakamura's performance ensured that he would officially join the world top ten as of January 1, 2011.

2011: First superGM tournament championship and continued rise[link]

In the January 2011 FIDE rating list, Nakamura was ranked number 10 in the world with a rating of 2751, his highest ranking to date.^[31]

Nakamura began training with former world champion Garry Kasparov. The first of several training sessions was held in New York at the beginning of January,^[32] but the training ended in December 2011.^[33]

From January 14 through January 30, Nakamura competed in the Tata Steel Grandmaster A tournament in Wijk aan Zee among a field of world No. 1 and defending champion Magnus Carlsen, world champion and world No. 2 Viswanathan Anand, world No. 3 and reigning World Blitz champion Levon Aronian, world No. 4 and former world champion Vladimir Kramnik, world No. 7 Alexander Grischuk, former FIDE world champion Ruslan Ponomariov, reigning Russian champion Ian Nepomniachtchi, reigning Chinese champion Wang Hao, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Alexei Shirov, Anish Giri, Jan Smeets, and Erwin L'Ami. The average rating of the field was 2740, making this thirteen-round event a category 20 tournament. After twelve rounds, Nakamura was in clear first place with 8.5 points going into the final round, half a point ahead of Anand and a full point ahead of Carlsen and Aronian.^[34][35][36] In the final round, Nakamura drew against Hao with the black pieces in a King's Indian Defense. With the draw, Nakamura finished with 9/13 (+5), a tournament performance rating of 2879, and guaranteed at least a share of first place. With Anand's final round draw against Nepomniachtchi, Nakamura clinched sole possession of first place,^[37][38] making him the first American to win the Wijk aan Zee tournament since 1980. The win also guaranteed that Nakamura will join Carlsen (winner of the 2010 Pearl Spring chess tournament) as qualifiers for Grand Slam Masters Final 2011 in September 2011.^[39] Nakamura after the tournament stated that his goal was to reach a 2800 rating by the end of the year; the win raised his rating from 2751 to 2774 and from world No. 10 to world No. 7 on the unofficial live rating list.^[40] The rating of 2774 is within 11 points of Bobby Fischer's peak rating of 2785.^[41]

Former world champion Garry Kasparov, considered by many to be the greatest chess player of all time, called Nakamura's victory the best by an American in more than 100 years:

In an e-mail, Kasparov said, "Fischer never won a tournament ahead of the world champion. He was second in Santa Monica", referring to the Second Piatigorsky Cup. "Of course, there were far fewer such events back then, and Fischer had several great tournament results like Stockholm 62", the interzonal qualifier for the world championship. "Reuben Fine only equaled Keres on points at AVRO in 38." Referring to the breakout performance of Frank J. Marshall, the United States Champion from 1909 to 1936, Mr. Kasparov continued, "Then you have Marshall at Cambridge Springs in 1904 ahead of Lasker, though Tarrasch wasn’t there. So unless you include Capablanca as an American player, I think you can go back to Pillsbury at Hastings 1895 for an American tournament victory on par with Nakamura’s."^[1]

Following his supertournament triumph, Nakamura was given the key to the city of Memphis, Tennessee on February 15, 2011.^[42] The victory also opened the door for Nakamura to receive invitations from other supergrandmaster tournaments for the first time, and increased his world ranking to a career-high number eight. In May he contested a six-game match in the United States against world No. 11 Ponomariov where he lost the first game but rallied to win the match 3.5–2.5, raising his rating to 2777 and ranking to world No. 6 on the unofficial live rating list, both career-highs to date. From June 11–21, he made his debut at the Bazna Kings Tournament in Romania in a field including Carlsen, world No. 5 Vassily Ivanchuk, world No. 6 Sergey Karjakin, world No. 13 Teimour Radjabov and Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu; the tournament was a Category XXI event with an average ELO of 2760, making it the third strongest tournament in history; Nakamura finished 4.5/10; the tournament was won by Carlsen on tiebreak over Karjakin.^[43] Despite the disappointing performance at Bazna, he reached a new career-high world ranking of No. 6 in the July 2011 FIDE list with a 2770 rating.

From July 21–31, Nakamura made his debut at the Dortmund Invitational in Germany; the field comprised world No. 5 Kramnik, world No. 10 Ponomariov, world No. 27 Le Quang Liem, world No. 40 Giri, and Georg Meier.^[44] Nakamura had a second consecutive disappointing performance, beginning at −3 before winning his last two games, including a last-round win over tournament winner Kramnik on the black side of the King's Indian Defense, to finish at 4.5/10.^[45]

Nakamura competed in the Grand Slam Masters Final 2011 in September, after which he played in the Tal Memorial for the second consecutive year in a field comprising Carlsen, Anand, Aronian, Karjakin, Kramnik, Ivanchuk, Gelfand, Hao, and Nepomniachtchi. He finished the year by participating in the London Chess Classic for the third consecutive time.^[46] Starting in 2012, he participated in the Reggio Emilia Tournament, tying for second with Alexander Morezvich of Russia, and Fabiano Caruana of Italy. Anish Giri got first place in the tournament, a half-point ahead of the field. He will next participate in the Tata Steel tournament in the Netherlands.

Other[link]

Nakamura is very skilled at blitz chess, and has been called "easily the best blitz player in America"^[2] and "one of the best blitz players in the world".^[47]

Nakamura is well known in the chess community for playing on the Internet regularly. He plays primarily on two chess sites: Internet Chess Club ('Smallville'(Which he does not use)) ('Capilanobridge'(His current account)) and Playchess ('Star Wars'). He is the strongest bullet, blitz and standard player on the server and he has set many rating records under different categories.^[48]

Nakamura has served as a commentator and game annotator, most prominently on the ChessNinja website, operated by chess author Mig Greengard.

Nakamura has been described as having an uncommon enthusiasm for chess and as being much more approachable than other players of his ability. For instance, just after winning his first U.S. Championship in 2005, he played numerous 1-minute games with all comers in the lobby of the hotel where the competition had taken place.^[49]

Nakamura attended Dickinson College for a short while in Pennsylvania as a member of the class of 2010. He is also an avid hockey fan, and frequently attends games of the New York Rangers and Vancouver Canucks.^{[citation needed]}

Nakamura maintains a Twitter account under the username "GMHikaru".^[50] After what was to him a disappointing tournament at the 5th Edition of the Kings Tournament in Medias (although Nakamura placed third of sixth among a cadre of top Grandmasters),^[51] Nakamura tweeted that he was focusing on the 2011 World Series of Poker,^[52] in which he played, although busted out on the second day.^[53] Kasparov, who has been training Nakamura in chess, has publicly grumbled about his interest in poker.^[54]

Hikaru has set several "youngest-ever" records in U.S. chess history, including:^[55]

• Youngest to defeat an International Master in a USCF-rated game (10 years, 0 months); later surpassed by Praveen Balakrishnan at 9 years 29 days; Recently surpassed by Awonder Liang at 8 years 118 days;
• Youngest to defeat a Grandmaster in a USCF-rated game (10 years, 117 days; later surpassed by Fabiano Caruana at 10 years, 61 days);
• Youngest International Master (13 years, 2 months; later surpassed by Ray Robson at 13 years, 1 month).

Sample game[link]

Nakamura vs. Novikov, 2002

	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h
8									8
7									7
6									6
5									5
4									4
3									3
2									2
1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h

Position after 34...Kd8. Typical of Nakamura's complicated and tactical style, Nakamura, only 15 years old at the time, finds a nice tactic to secure some material and the game.

This section uses algebraic notation to describe chess moves.

The following game is Nakamura–Novikov, played in the 29th New York Masters 2002. Nakamura's annotations are given along with the text.

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Be3 e6 7. f3 b5 8. Qd2 Nbd7 9. g4 Nb6 10. 0-0-0 Bb7 11. Nb3 Rc8 12. Na5 Ba8 13. a4!?

This rare line has only been played two times, both games were draws. (13.g5 Nfd7 14.a4 b4 15.Na2 Nxa4 16.Bxa6 Qxa5 17.Bxc8 Ndb6=/+ Perez–Novikov, Aosta Open Italy 2002.)

13... Nc4

13...d5 14.g5 Nfd7 15.exd5 Bxd5 16.axb5 Bb4 17.Nc6 Bxc6 18.bxc6 Rxc6 19.Bxb6 Rxb6 20.Qd4 0-0 21.Na4! Rb8 22.Qxd7 Qxg5+ 23.f4 Qxf4+ 24.Kb1+/− Andreev–Voitsekhovsky, 2000.

14. Nxc4 bxc4 15. Qd4 Qc7 16. g5 Nd7 17. f4

17.h4 e5 18.Qa7 Qxa7 19.Bxa7 h6 20.Bh3+/= De la Villa Garcia–Suba, Benasque Open 1995.

17... h6 18. g6!?

The idea behind sacrificing the pawn is to weaken the e6 and g6 pawns, and force Black to move his king to f7. (18.gxh6 Rxh6 19.f5 Rh7 [19...Rh4 20.fxe6 fxe6 21.Bf2 Rh7 22.Bg3!+/=] 20.fxe6.)

18... fxg6

Novikov accepts the challenge. Perhaps f5 was better because once he takes on g6 his pieces get tied down, and Black ends up with a very passive position. (18...f5!? 19.Bg2 Nf6~~.)

19. Rg1 Kf7

19...e5?! 20.Qd2 g5 (20...exf4 21.Bxf4 Qb6 22.Rxg6 Rb8 23.b3 cxb3 24.Re6+ Kf7 25.Bc4+/− ; 20...Qb7 21.Qd5! Qxd5 22.Nxd5+/=) 21.fxg5 hxg5 22.Nd5+/=.

20. f5 gxf5

20...exf5 21.exf5 gxf5 22.Bh3→.

21. exf5 e5 22.Qh4?!

Missing a chance to get a winning position. (22.Qg4! Nf6 23.Qg6+ Ke7 24.Bg2+/−.)

22... Nf6 23. Be2 Ke8 24. Rg6 Qf7 25. Qg3 Rb8 26. a5! Bc6 27. Bb6 h5

This is the only move which makes any sense here, but it allows White to win the exchange. Maybe Novikov felt like giving up the exchange to get some counterplay because if he does not play h5 White has all the play.

28. Qh4 d5 29. Qg3 Qe7 30. Bd4! Rxb2 31. Kxb2 exd4 32. Rxd4 Qa3+ 33. Kb1 Bd6?

33...Qb4+ 34.Kc1 Bd6~~ After the game, when I analysed with Novikov, he suggested this line. I did not find anything which was winning for White, and I think that Black is at least even in this position if not better.

34. Qe3+ Kd8 (see diagram) 35. Nxd5!!

Clearly Novikov did not see this brilliant tactical shot as he used up most of his time trying to come up with a good move. In the end he had to settle for a losing endgame down an exchange.

35... Qxe3

35...Bxd5 36.Qxa3 Bxa3 37.Bxc4 Bc5 38.Rd3+−; 35...Qxa5 36.Nxf6 Qe1+ 37.Qc1+−; 35...Nxd5 36.Qxa3 Bxa3 37.Rxc6+−.

36. Nxe3 Kc7 37. Rxg7+ Nd7 38. Nxc4 Rb8+ 39. Nb6 Re8 40. Bf3 Re1+ 41. Ka2 Ra1+!

Desperation.

42. Kxa1 Be5 43. c3 Bxg7 44. Bxc6 Bxd4 45. cxd4 1–0

45.cxd4 Kxc6 46.d5+ Kd6 47.Nxd7 Kxd7 48.f6+−.

Head-to-head record versus top players[link]

(Rapid, blitz and blindfold games not included; listed as +wins −losses =draws as of January 9, 2012.)^[56]
Players who have been World Champion in boldface

Notes[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Hikaru Nakamura

• Hikaru Nakamura's Official Website
• Hikaru Nakamura's Live Chess Rating Statistics
• Hikaru Nakamura player profile at ChessGames.com
• Hikaru Nakamura player profile at the Internet Chess Club
• Play through Nakamura's 2005 U.S. Championship Games

Pyotr Svidler
Full name	Pyotr Veniaminovich Svidler
Country	Russia
Born	(1976-06-17) June 17, 1976 (age 36) Leningrad, Russian SFSR, USSR
Title	Grandmaster
FIDE rating	2741 (May 2012) (No. 13 in the January 2012 FIDE World Rankings)
Peak rating	2765 (January 2006)

Peter Veniaminovich Svidler (Russian: Пётр Вениами́нович Сви́длер; Pyotr Veniaminovich Svidler, born June 17, 1976, in Leningrad) is a Russian chess grandmaster. He is six-time Russian champion (1994, 1995, 1997, 2003, 2008, 2011). He placed shared second (together with Viswanathan Anand) in the FIDE World Chess Championship 2005 with 8.5 points out of 14 games, finishing 1.5 points behind the winner, Veselin Topalov. In the World Chess Championship 2007, he placed 5th among the eight players. He has won five team gold medals and one individual bronze medal at Chess Olympiads.^[1]

Svidler learned to play chess when he was six years old. In 1992, he tied for 1st–2nd with Ragim Gasimov in the USSR Junior Open Chess Championship.^[2] He became Grandmaster in 1994.

In 2001, he reached the semi-finals of the FIDE World Championship. Andrei Lukin is his coach.

Svidler is a noted proponent of Fischer Random Chess (also called Chess960). He won the first edition of the Chess960 Open held in Mainz, Germany. At the 2003 Mainz Chess Classic, he became Chess960 World Champion by beating Péter Lékó in an eight-game match. He successfully defended his title twice, defeating Levon Aronian in 2004 and Zoltán Almási in 2005, before losing it to Aronian in 2006.

In an interview [1] given for World Chess Network after the World Chess Championship 2005 held in San Luis, he said: "I only prepared seriously for San Luis, and I think it has paid off. But in general I spend most of my spare time with my wife and kids, so my relative success in 2005 was a pleasant surprise." His San Luis result earned him direct entry to the World Chess Championship 2007. In that tournament he scored 6.5 out of 14, placing 5th out of eight players.

In 2006 he went second behind Alexander Grischuk at the World Blitz Championship in Rishon Lezion, Israel, with 10.5 points out of 15 games. He also finished tied for first with Vladimir Kramnik at the Dortmund 2006.

In February 2009 he came first at the 7th Gibtelecom Masters in Gibraltar Chess Festival.^[3]

Svidler is a fan of cricket; his handle on the Internet Chess Club server is Tendulkar.^[4]

Recently Svidler won the Chess World Cup 2011 in Khanty-Mansiysk, defeating Alexander Grischuk in the finals 2½ - 1½.

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Peter Svidler

• Official homepage
• Peter Svidler player profile at ChessGames.com
• Peter Svidler player profile at the Internet Chess Club (Tendulkar)
• Peter Svidler player profile at the Internet Chess Club (p-svidler)
• Interview with Peter Svidler (2005)