London Chess Classic 2012 – Levon Aronian vs Hikaru Nakamura

The London Chess Classic 2012 has blasted open the 1st round with a decisive result in all 4 games – an extremely rare occurrence at a super-elite tournament like this. The 4th London Chess Classic features the 3 highest rated players in the world with #1 Magnus Carlsen at 2848 FIDE, on the verge of breaking Garry Kasparov´s all-time FIDE record – trailed by #2 Levon Aronian at 2815 FIDE, and former World Chess Champion as well as the 2011 winner of the London Chess Classic, Vladimir Kramnik. The current World Chess Champion Viswanathan Anand comes in at #7 in the world rankings list at 2775 FIDE, trailed by #11 in the world Hikaru Nakamura (2766), followed by hometown British GMs Luke McShane (2713), Michael Adams (2710), Gawain Jones (2644), and the strongest female chess player of all time – Judit Polgar (2705). This star-studded field will compete under the Sophia rules, rewarding 3 points for a win and 1 point for a draw – a format that does an excellent job of enticing more aggressive play from the world’s elite. Round 1 action was stunningly wild as all 4 games were decisive – Carlsen beat McShane, Nakamura beat Aronian, Kramnik beat Polgar, and Adams beat Jones (Anand had a bye in round 1 and was assisting commentary). In the following chess video, we’ll take a look at one of the more exciting wins in round 1 – a very clean win by Hikaru Nakamura with the black pieces over the #2 highest rated …