Hikaru Nakamura is the winner of the first leg of the FIDE Grand Prix Series 2022
The winner of the first leg of the FIDE Grand Prix 2022 Series was decided on tiebreaks with the American GM and streamer, Hikaru Nakamura, achieving an impressive 2-0 score against Levon Aronian.
Hikaru Nakamura from Group A and Levon Aronian from Group C were the FIDE Grand Prix 2022 finalists. After a 1-1 score in the finals, the two GMs faced each other in an intense playoff. Eventually, Nakamura won both of the rapid games and increased his chances of qualifying to the Candidates.
Nakamura-Aronian | Game 1
The first game of the tiebreaks started with the Ruy Lopez and Nakamura had a healthy extra pawn, pushing to win. Along the game Aronian equalized the position until he decided to go to a rooks endgame with one pawn down, giving Nakamura the advantage once more.
As time started to push, Aronian “seemed to panic” as GM Evgenij Miroshnichenko commented. Only with a few seconds on their clocks, Aronian made a huge blunder and Nakamura managed to win the first game.
Aronian-Nakamura | Game 2
Game 2 of the final tiebreaks started with the Italian game. The pressure was on Aronian since he found himself in a must-win situation, but his position looked comfortably better.
Nakamura though demonstrated an active defense and ultimately won the second game after Aronian totally blundered a mate in 4.
Check our tiebreaks live stream with GM Evgenij Miroshnichenko and WIM Jesse February.
