United States grandmaster and its number one chess player Hikaru Nakamura emerged victorious at the recent London Super Sixteen rapid tournament at which some of the finest players in the world were represented. The former Indian world champion Vishy Anand was there, and so was the former Russian world champ Vladimir Kramnik. Italy’s Fabiano Caruana, Israel’s Boris Gelfand, the highest-ranked woman player of all time, Judit Polgar, from Hungary, and the British grandmasters led by Michael Adams and Nigel Short were all there.
Anand reached the semi-finals but was eliminated by Kramnik with black in a thrilling encounter, a game which lasted a mere 27 moves. Short lost to Nakamura, Gelfand outplayed Caruana and Adams beat Peter Svidler. In the finals, it was Nakamura versus Gelfand. Playing resourceful and precise chess, Nakamura defeated the Israeli grandmaster.
Although there are a lot of chess stories circulating, like Garry Kasparov embarking on the campaign trail in Indonesia for the