PoPChess

[US champ Hikaru Nakamura drew with black against Kasimjanov while Ponomariov beat Vallejo to tie for first on +4, 6.5/9. In a blitz playoff for the title, Nakamura beat Ponomariov 2-0. Woo! Congrats to both for tremendous results.] (Photo from David Llada’s Donostia Flickr set.)

This is it! Final round: Kasimjanov-Nakamura, Ponomariov-Vallejo, Granda-Svidler, San Segundo-Karpov, Movsesian-Vachier-Lagrave. The round begins an hour earlier than usual, so 1600 CET, 10:00am Eastern. Live here. If Kasimjanov doesn’t get anything with white I doubt either of them will tempt fate. Ponomariov will probably push till the clock falls apart if he gets any edge. Blitz playoff if they tie for first. It’s technically possible to have a three-way tie and a mini blitz tournament, but unlikely. (Nakamura loses, Ponomariov draws, Svidler wins. Or Nakamura loses, Vallejo wins, Svidler wins.) Call’em like you see’em.

In the Kutxa ‘B Group’ tournament, van Wely’s smooth cruise to victory was sunk by a wild loss to Hamdouchi in the 7th round. The Dutchman now trails Magem Badals by a half-point. Flear and Prie are tied for first in the Euskal Xake Eskola Tournament, Flear with good chances since he’s paired with the low-rated tail-ender. Sophie Milliet of France beat her co-leader Melnikova to take over clear first by a point in the Diputación Foral de Gipuzkoa Tournament.

Update: Looks like we’re headed for a blitz playoff. Nakamura handled his business and held Kasimjanov to a quick draw. But Vallejo is defending rather horribly an exchange down after a direct attack by Ponomariov netted him a big plus. (And he could have won instantly with 26.exd6! winning the black queen.) — Yep, there it is, 1-0. Now it’s two 5-minute blitz games for the title with a 5′-4′ armageddon game if needed. Though the real tournament is over with impressive +4 scores for both Nakamura and Ponomariov. Great job by both. The arrival of a new star — Nakamura now joins the top 20 — and the return of an old one?

High-pressure blitz is a crapshoot of course and the conventional wisdom is that the player who came from behind has some sort of psychological advantage. We’ll see, but these shootouts are usually such a mess I find it hard to show much interest. I suppose they are necessary to a point, and better than system tiebreaks. But I’m of the standard opinion that in these situations the players tied for first and so-and-so got the title on tiebreaks. Don’t know how much of a break they’ll give the players. Blitz relays are notoriously tricky.

If you couldn’t guess, all the other games were drawn without much work.

Update: Nakamura wins first tiebreak game with white. (33.Qxe5!! is an instant immortal. Ow.) After the usual blitz relay mess it appears he has also won game two! (No score yet.) And they said all those years smashing people on the ICC were a waste of time! US champ Hikaru Nakamura is the San Sebastian champion and winner of the txapela!

The score of the second blitz game will likely remain unknown/incomplete until they go over the video David Llada made of it. The first one was sure a crusher. Not sure if they split the first two prizes as is usual or if Nakamura gets the full 9,000 euros ($12,700). Second is 6,000. [Now confirmed that Nakamura gets the full 9,000.]