Nakamura on Comeback Trail!

[Event “3rd London Chess Classic 2011”]
[Site “London/UK”]
[Date “2011.12.06”]
[Round “4”]
[White "Anand, Vishy "]
[Black “Nakamura, Hikaru”]
[Result “0-1”]
[ECO “E97”]
[WhiteElo “2811”]
[BlackElo “2758”]
[Annotator “Robot 4”]
[PlyCount “98”]
[EventDate “2011.??.??”]
[TimeControl “40/7200:20/3600:900+30”]

  1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. Nf3 O-O 6. Be2 e5 7. O-O Nc6 8. d5
    Ne7 9. b4 Ne8 10. c5 f5 11. Nd2 Nf6 12. a4 g5 13. Nc4 h6 14. f3 f4 15. Ba3 Ng6
  2. b5 dxc5 17. Bxc5 Rf7 18. a5 h5 19. b6 g4 20. Nb5 cxb6 21. axb6 g3 22. Kh1
    Bf8 23. d6 a6 24. Nc7 Rb8 25. Na5 Kh8 26. Bc4 Rg7 27. Ne6 Bxe6 28. Bxe6 gxh2
  3. Nc4 Qe8 30. Bd5 h4 31. Rf2 h3 32. gxh3 Rc8 33. Ra5 Nh4 34. Kxh2 Nd7 35. Bb4
    Rg3 36. Qf1 Qh5 37. Ra3 a5 38. Be1 Rxc4 39. Bxc4 Bxd6 40. Rxa5 Bc5 41. Be2 Bxb6
  4. Rb5 Bd4 43. Bd1 Bxf2 44. Bxf2 Nxf3+ 45. Bxf3 Qxf3 46. Rb1 Rg6 47. Rxb7 Nf6
  5. Rb8+ Kh7 49. Rb7+ Kh6 0-1

Interesting interview/analysis of the game by Nakamura on video. The role of Scots whiskey in generating playable variations is not to be underestimated. His comments about humans and computers are interesting and his points are ,IMO, well taken.
chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=7734

I love his style. While all the other GM’s seem to be obsessed with finding the moves a computer would make, he has the “Tal” attitude, that chess is a dynamic game, that it’s not necessarily playing computer moves, but making life difficult for your HUMAN opponent. Big deal, some darned computer finds better moves. Of what relevance is that to the over-the-board-under-time-pressure situation of a real game?

 Nakamura played a great game. Heck, anytime one beats the world champ, it's a great game. 

I enjoyed Naka's postmortum interview that you refer to. It was so refreshing to hear someone take such an attitude. I love when he said basically "I lost yesterday, I was just going to throw caution to the wind today". And he did! 

I was very disturbed by fan comments on chessbomb during the Anand-Nakamura game. Everytime each player didn’t make the best move by computer, comments rolled in how “Anand stinks, he’s not a champ”, “Naka is an amateur”, and “this game is being laughed at by Kramnik and Carlsen” (my favorite. I feel quite sure those two, contrary to laughing, were probably hypnotized by the game). Probably the large majority of these fans never actually entered a live human-to-human tourney and all the tension that involves, even at my former level (2000-2200). The comments were truly abhorrent. The same fans making such comments are probably the ones saying how boring most of the games are. Here comes a guy like Nakamura, who’s willing to spice the game up, take chances, and he gets utterly trashed by the public for not making “computer moves”.

What’s worse, even the “official” GM (I think he was a GM, I forget who it was), who was annotating, was saying how many “mistakes” were made in this game. As far as I’m concerned, “mistakes” cannot be applied to such wild positions as was occurring, given time constraints. I would have liked to have seen that big-shot annotator play that position. Mistakes? Maybe a matter of symantics, but I wouldn’t use that word. Nobody dropped a piece, or made a move that immediately lost.

Next time I watch a game on the internet, I’m going to turn off thecomments (if I can). I’ve lost some respect for some chess fans along the way. Those comments detract from my enjoyment of the games.