Today at Tata, Anand drew his game with Grischuk, and a majority of the other games were decisive. The standings can be found here. By far the most interesting game to my eyes was the L’Ami- Nakamura game, in which Nakamura played the volatile gambit 6…b5 in the Nimzo-Indian. L’Ami declined to accept the gambit, as black gets explosive pressure in return for the pawn, and the game entered very quiet waters. Interestingly, the ending found Nakamura with a knight pair vs L’Ami’s bishop pair, but Nakamura coordinated his knights amazingly well, deep in the open pastures of white’s position, and managed to force resignation. Incidentally, this line in the nimzo was recommended by Andrew Martin in his book “Secret Weapons,” which oddly has a pistol on the cover and which I bought on ebay for three dollars a year ago (it’s now selling for 80 on amazon- go figure.) In any case, how wild to see such a move in high level chess- no question- Nakamura is the most interesting player in Group A. Tomorrow is one of the most exciting games of the tournament- Anand-Carlsen. I can’t wait- I will be watching it live at the Marshall Chess Club while I direct tomorrow’s tournament, checking in between rounds to see whether Anand can teach the kid a lesson about what it takes to be world champion.

In any case, here is Naka’s game-