Hikaru Nakamura vs Wesley So, A45, Indian Game
2018 Your Next Move (Rapid, day 3), Round 7, Leuven, 06/15/18
Wesley So has managed to outplay and outwit the field in the first portion of Your Next Move! He started the Grand Chess Tour the best way imaginable, scoring 7/9 and going into the blitz portion 1.5 points ahead of the competition. On day 3 he drew two games and defeated Hikaru Nakamura, which means he played 4 draws and won 5 games so far.
In this game he faced Nakamura with the black pieces and they managed to exit theory on move 7! The position was completely new and Wesley managed to get a huge lead in development and a positional advantage too. In exchange, Hikaru was the c pawn up temporarily. After a while Wesley regained material and even went a pawn up. He lured Hikaru into a trap. He allowed him to take two pawns with check! Hikaru took them but lost a whole piece because of that. Wesley was quick to punish the blunder and managed to convert comfortably.
Rapid portion, final standings:
Wesley So 7/9
Levon Aronian 5.5/9
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave 5.5/9
Sergey Karjakin 5/9
Hikaru Nakamura 5/9
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov 4.5/9
Alexander Grischuk 4/9
Fabiano Caruana 3.5/9
Viswanathan Anand 2.5/9
Anish Giri 2.5/9
Game moves:
1. d4 Nf6 2. Bf4 d5 3. e3 c5 4. dxc5 e6 5. b4 a5 6. c3 Bd7
7. Qb3 axb4 8. cxb4 b6 9. Bd6 Ne4 10. Qb2 Nxd6 11. cxd6 Qf6
12. Qxf6 gxf6 13. b5 Bxd6 14. a4 Ke7 15. Bd3 Rc8 16. Ne2 e5
17. f3 f5 18. Ra2 Be6 19. Rc2 Bb4+ 20. Kf1 Rxa4 21. Rxc8 Bxc8
22. Nec3 Bxc3 23. Nxc3 Ra3 24. Nxd5+ Kd6 25. Nxb6 Be6 26. Bb1
Kc5 27. Nc8 Bxc8 28. Kf2 Be6 29. g4 fxg4 30. Bxh7 Nd7 31. Rb1
Ra2+ 32. Kg3 gxf3 33. h4 f5 34. Kxf3 Nf6 0-1