Nakamura Leads Clutch Chess on 4/6 After Day One in Saint Louis

At the Clutch Chess: Champions Showdown in Saint Louis, Hikaru Nakamura finished day one in front on 4/6, with two wins and four draws. Javokhir Sindarov is half a point back on 3½/6, unbeaten with one win and five draws. Fabiano Caruana has 2½ and Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu 2.

The lead is thinner than it looks. In the format devised by Maurice Ashley, wins are worth one point on Tuesday, two on Wednesday and three on Thursday.

Draws pay half a point on day one and a full point on each of the last two days. The prize fund is $425,000, and the money from drawn games goes into a Champion’s Jackpot for the eventual winner. According to Chess.com, the seven draws on day one added $7,000 to it.

Nakamura’s two wins, and the one that got away

Nakamura beat Caruana with White in their second mini-match, then beat Pragg, also with White. He had drawn his first game against Caruana with Black.

In that game Nakamura had a winning endgame, two pawns up. Caruana, in what the report calls “desperado mode”, created a kingside passer.

On 58.g5, Nakamura played 58…hxg5??, which allowed 59.Rc8+ Kb4 60.Rxc3 Kxc3 and a new queen on h8 with check. Perpetual check followed.

The winning move was 58…Re3+, an intermediate check that stops White capturing on c3. After the king steps aside, Black collects the g5 pawn with an easy win.

He made up for it in game two. The players followed Wesley So’s playoff game against Caruana from the U.S. Championship, the game that won So the title, but this time Caruana chose the sounder 5…Qe7 rather than 5…0-0.

The queens came off, and Nakamura outplayed Caruana in a dry ending with bishop against knight and rooks still on the board. Only 44…Nc4 held, and Caruana’s 44…Nf7 left the knight on an undefended square, which decided the game tactically.

Sindarov’s missed chance

Nakamura also escaped in his last game. Sindarov had a winning ending with rooks, opposite-coloured bishops and passed pawns for both sides. To convert, he needed 63.c6!, letting Black push the f-file passer far down the board.

With only 20 seconds left, Sindarov played 63.Bd4? and Black held. The game was drawn only after Black’s 117th move, once the position had reduced to rook and bishop against rook.

Sindarov later revealed he had practised that very ending against his second, Mukhiddin Madaminov, and lost it several times.

Pragg’s rough day

Sindarov’s one win came against Pragg in their first game. Pragg had stood well earlier but let his opponent equalise under time pressure. In an opposite-coloured bishop ending he played 47.g4??, dropped a pawn and then ran out of time.

Caruana and Pragg split their mini-match, each winning with Black. In the first game Pragg’s 21.Nc6! was brilliant, and he stayed slightly better after an inaccuracy on move 27.

Then 32.Qf3?? allowed 32…c2, and he resigned. 32.Qf4 would have kept a sharp fight going.

Pragg answered in the return game with a same-coloured bishop ending. After 57…h6! Caruana was in zugzwang, and 58.Bc3 Bxf4 let Pragg convert. It was his only win of the day, and it ended a hard start on a good note.

What Nakamura said

Nakamura admitted to being surprised. After a long absence from over-the-board play, he had expected to be the most out-of-form player in the field. Instead he said, “I seem to be the sharpest player,” and felt he had “pretty much outplayed” Caruana and Pragg.

He added that “one of the players is saving their preparation.” He did not name who.

Commentator Yasser Seirawan shared the surprise: “I did not expect Hikaru, who skipped the Grand Chess Tour, to come out and look so good. But he’s got to do it all again tomorrow.”

Caruana was less pleased with his own day: “I was kind of saving all the losing positions and losing all the dead-drawn positions!”

What comes next

The day produced five decisive games and seven draws, with plenty of time-trouble swings behind the draws.

With twelve games each still to play across the next two days, Nakamura’s lead of half a point over Sindarov, and two over Pragg, is small. A single won mini-match on Wednesday, at two points a win, could reshuffle the table, and Thursday’s triple-weighted wins count for even more.

Day two starts at 1 p.m. ET on Wednesday, 28 October.