Nakamura Wins 1st Internet Chess Club prizemoney open

Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2011

Hello everyone,

The world #8 (#6 on the live ratings), GM Hikaru Nakamura of the USA has won the first online blitz hosted by the Internet Chess Club and taken home the first prize of $600. 

Nakamura won the first of the four online qualifiers to be the top-seed and hot favorite in the eight-player knockout final that also included (in ICC blitz rating order) GM Simonian Hrair (Armenia), GM Eduardo Iturrizaga (Venezuela), GM Robert Hovhannisyan (Armenia), GM Dmitry Andrekin (Russia), GM Dmitry Bocharov (Russia), FM Conrad Holt (USA), and IM Levon Altounian (USA).

Nakamura - who played from Madrid, Spain, as he was en route to Romania for the upcoming Bazna tournament - easily progressed to the final by beating Hovhannisyan and Altounian. And he looked set for a comfortable win in the final against Hrair, but the young Armenian fought back to tie the pulsating match at 3-3. But Nakamura had more than just a little luck on his side as he went on to win the best-of-two-game tiebreaker to take the title by 4.5-3.5

A record-breaking 2,216 ICC members took part in the 1st ICC Open (Q1, 661; Q2, 441; Q3, 643; Q4, 471) that also included class prizes for those rated U2200, U2000, U1800 and U1600, the prize-winners of which will be announced shortly.

You can keep track at this link. 

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