A Day Off

Fabiano Caruana – Hikaru Nakamura
60th U.S. Chess Championship; Saint Louis, April 17, 2016
Sicilian Defence B80

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6. A declaration of war. 6. f3 e6 7. Be3 h5 8. a4 Nc6 9. Bc4! It is undoubtedly an improvement over 9. Be2 d5 which gave Black no problem, Hráček – Ki. Georgiev, 53rd Yugoslavian Team Chess Championship, Herceg Novi 2001. 9. ... Qc7 10. Qe2 Be7 11. 0-0 Ne5 12. Bb3 Bd7 13. f4. Back before the age of computer chess, no White guy was too happy to allow Black to change his Knight for the dark-square Bishop. But the old, sacred general principles are constantly put in question by the opening preparation with top computer programs. 13. ... Neg4 14. Kh1 Nxe3 15. Qxe3 Qc5 16. Rad1 g6 17. Qe2 0-0-0. It appears very risky to me.

18. f5! Apparently, the straightforward 18. e5! would have caused Black even more apprehension, for instance after 18. ... Ne8 19. Ne4, but Fabi’s “dual” is, from a positional point of view, very unpleasant too. 18. ... e5 19. Nf3 gxf5 20. Ng5 f4. In order to met 21. Nxf7 by 21. ... Bg4. 21. Rd3! Kb8. Black sacrifices the Exchange envisioning an attack on the Kingside by ... h5-h4-h3. Hikaru’s idea, if not sound, is not totally unsound, but in fact he does not support it properly. 22. Nxf7 h4 23. Nxh8 Rxh8 24. Qf2 Qb4? Incredibly enough, Nakamura subjects himself to a very easy refutation. It would have been hard to find a square worse than this for Her Majesty! 25. Nd5 Nxd5 26. Bxd5. The obvious threat is Rd3-b3. 26. ... Bxa4. The more he sharpens, the worse he gets. However, after 26. ... Bc8 27. Rb3 White should win anyway, even though not so quickly. 27. Ra3! h3. Desperation. 28. c3 Qb5 29. b3 Bh4 30. bxa4 Qd3 31. g3 1 : 0. “I think Hikaru had a very off day today”, then Caruana said. But you played very well, Mr. Caruana!

Fabiano Caruana
Photo: Spectrum Studios

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