Nakamura Wins 15th Speed Chess Championship Grand Prix
GM Hikaru Nakamura won the 15th Speed Chess Championship Grand Prix, his second week straight and already his fourth win since the start of the series. The American grandmaster beat his compatriot GM Sam Sevian 1.5-0.5 in the knockout final and continues to lead in the overall Grand Prix standings.
The next Speed Chess Championship Grand Prix will be played on September 15 at 10 a.m. Pacific / 19:00 Central Europe.
The 15th Speed Chess Grand Prix tournament was held on Tuesday, September 8, with 728 participants. It was Ukrainian GM Yuriy Kuzubov who won the Swiss part as the only player to finish on 9/10.
The live broadcast of the tournament.
With three rounds to go in the Swiss part and before moving to the knockout phase, Kuzubov was still on a perfect score with just one other participant: GM Jeffery Xiong from the United States.
The two were paired against each other (as that's how Swiss tournaments work!), and it was Kuzubov who added yet another victory to his streak.
Two draws in the final two rounds were enough for the Ukrainian GM to "win" the tournament alone—incidentally, against the current leaders of the SCC GP, Nakamura and GM Parham Maghsoodloo.
To find interesting games, it's never a bad idea to check GM Alireza Firouzja's. This time it's a loss for the Iranian prodigy (his only loss in the Swiss part) and a thumbs-up for Chess.com's Director of Portuguese Content, GM Krikor Mekhitarian.
Due to an early draw with GM Mikhail Golubev and a loss to GM Baadur Jobava, Nakamura absolutely had to win his final-round game vs. GM Dariusz Swiercz to keep his chances for reaching the final eight. He managed but in some hectic time-trouble.
.@GMHikaru wins a must-win game vs. GM Dariusz Swiercz and is still in contention for the final eight!#SpeedChesshttps://t.co/2psh9VgMkv pic.twitter.com/OMjIpl7f9f
— ChesscomNews (@ChesscomNews) September 8, 2020
The players who qualified for the knockout together with Firouzja, Kuzubov, Maghsoodloo, and Nakamura were GMs Sam Sevian, Vladimir Fedoseev, Nodirbek Abdusattorov, and Vladislav Artemiev. It was one of the strongest final-eight brackets we've seen so far.
September 8 Speed Chess Grand Prix | Swiss Final Standings (Top 20)
| Rk | Fed | Title | Username | Name | Score | SB |
| 1 | GM | @KuzubovYuriy | Yuriy Kuzubov | 9 | 52.5 | |
| 2 | GM | @Konavets | Sam Sevian | 8.5 | 53.75 | |
| 3 | GM | @Firouzja2003 | Alireza Firouzja | 8.5 | 53.5 | |
| 4 | GM | @Hikaru | Hikaru Nakamura | 8.5 | 52.75 | |
| 5 | GM | @Bigfish1995 | Vladimir Fedoseev | 8.5 | 52.25 | |
| 6 | GM | @ChessWarrior7197 | Nodirbek Abdusattorov | 8.5 | 51.75 | |
| 7 | GM | @Sibelephant | Vladislav Artemiev | 8.5 | 49.5 | |
| 8 | GM | @Parhamov | Parham Maghsoodloo | 8.5 | 44.5 | |
| 9 | IM | @OminousOmen | Nikolas Theodorou | 8.5 | 41 | |
| 10 | GM | @Fandorine | Maksim Chigaev | 8 | 53 | |
| 11 | GM | @GOGIEFF | Anton Korobov | 8 | 50.75 | |
| 12 | CM | @jhonnyuribe | jhonny uribe | 8 | 48 | |
| 13 | GM | @mishanick | Aleksey Sarana | 8 | 47.5 | |
| 14 | GM | @daro94 | Dariusz Swiercz | 8 | 47 | |
| 14 | GM | @SergeyKarjakin | Sergey Karjakin | 8 | 47 | |
| 16 | IM | @m_ezat | Mohamed Ezat | 8 | 46 | |
| 17 | IM | @Gloomy_Wanderer | Valery Kazakouski | 8 | 45 | |
| 18 | GM | @AnishOnYoutube | Anish Giri | 8 | 43.75 | |
| 19 | GM | @jefferyx | Jeffery Xiong | 8 | 43.5 | |
| 20 | GM | @sergiochess83 | Sergey Grigoriants | 8 | 39.5 |
Nakamura defeated Fedoseev and Kuzubov before facing Sevian in the final. The latter had eliminated one of the absolute favorites, Artemiev, by flagging his opponent in a totally lost position in their second game.
Sevian's final move was made with his last remaining pawn, and because that one was still on the board, the system automatically and ruthlessly declared the game lost for Artemiev, abiding to the Laws of Chess.
That b7-pawn reminds of Jan Hein Donner's famous love letter to his pawn on a5 from his game with Dragoljub Velimirovic (Havana 1971), in which the Dutch grandmaster calls it his "sweet little thing" and "you little rascal."
Nakamura won his fourth(!) Speed Chess Championship Grand Prix since early June by beating Sevian in the first game of the final (thanks to a nice trick) and drawing the second.
Nakamura won the $1,000 first prize and 12 GP points while Sevian took second ($500 and eight GP points). Abduattorov and Kuzubov both won $200 and four GP points, while the losing quarterfinalists each earned $100 and two GP points.
GM Kateryna Lagno (@KaterynaLagno) won the $100 prize for being the top-scoring female player.
Below are the current Speed Chess Championship Grand Prix standings. At the end of the season, the players with the four best scores will advance to the Speed Chess Championship to be hosted later this year.
Speed Chess Championship Grand Prix | Standings After September 8 (Top 20)
| # | Fed | Title | Name | Username | Swiss Points |
Bonus Points |
Overall Points |
| 1 | GM | Hikaru Nakamura | @Hikaru | 68 | 52 | 120 | |
| 2 | GM | Parham Maghsoodloo | @Parhamov | 68 | 24 | 92 | |
| 3 | GM | Vladislav Artemiev | @Sibelephant | 51 | 38 | 89 | |
| 4 | GM | Haik Martirosyan | @Micki-taryan | 59.5 | 28 | 87.5 | |
| 5 | GM | Alireza Firouzja | @Firouzja2003 | 65 | 14 | 79 | |
| 6 | GM | Vladislav Kovalev | @vladislavkovalev | 66 | 8 | 74 | |
| 7 | GM | Nordibek Abdusattorov | @ChessWarrior7197 | 58.5 | 14 | 72.5 | |
| 8 | GM | Dmitry Andreikin | @2Vladimirovich90 | 57 | 14 | 71 | |
| 9 | GM | Grigoriy Oparin | @OparinGrigoriy | 50.5 | 20 | 70.5 | |
| 10 | GM | Maxime Vachier-Lagrave | @LyonBeast | 41.5 | 28 | 69.5 | |
| 11 | GM | Maksim Chigaev | @Fandorine | 56.5 | 12 | 68.5 | |
| 12 | GM | Sergey Karjakin | @SergeyKarjakin | 57.5 | 10 | 67.5 | |
| 13 | GM | Boris Grachev | @Guenplen | 47.5 | 12 | 59.5 | |
| 14 | GM | Vladimir Fedoseev | @Bigfish1995 | 41.5 | 16 | 57.5 | |
| 15 | IM | Tuan Minh Le | @wonderfultime | 50 | 6 | 56 | |
| 16 | GM | Alexander Grischuk | @Grischuk | 49.5 | 6 | 55.5 | |
| 17 | GM | Aleksandar Indjic | @Beca95 | 49.5 | 6 | 55.5 | |
| 18 | GM | Oleksandr Bortnyk | @Oleksandr_Bortnyk | 41 | 12 | 53 | |
| 19 | GM | Raunak Sadhwani | @RaunakSadhwani2005 | 47.5 | 4 | 51.5 | |
| 20 | GM | Yuriy Kuzubov | @KuzubovYuriy | 41 | 8 | 49 |
Games final eight
The Speed Chess Championship Grand Prix is presented by Gambit, where you can play classic games like Reversi, Backgammon, and Oh Ship with players from around the world.
More information about the Speed Chess Championship Grand Prix can be found here.
Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
Peter's first book The Chess Revolution is out now!
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