The world number five and chess streamer extraordinaire finished a near-flawless run through the competition featuring his strongest national rivals in jaw-dropping fashion as his opponent, Wesley So, fought back from the lower bracket to force repeated tiebreaks, only to miss a two-move sequence that trapped his queen in the decider.
The American Cup featured the United States’ strongest grandmasters, from Nakamura, Caruana, Aronian, So, and Dominguez Perez to Sevian, Shankland, and Robson. The event uses a double-elimination format, which is rare in chess circles.
As an added twist, the upper bracket matches are played with classical time controls (90 minutes plus 30 seconds per move), while the lower bracket features rapid (25+10) games. The players played two games in each match, one with each color, and if the end result is a draw, they played progressively faster playoffs: 10+5, 3+2 and Armageddon (five minutes against four, with draw odds for Black.)
Nakamura had a comfortable run to the grand final, dispatching Sevian and Dominguez Perez with impeccably precise play. He then defeated Wesley So in the upper bracket in the blitz portion of the tiebreakers. As So was able to bounce back with a win over Fabiano Caruana to earn a second chance, Nakamura still had two chances, having an extra tiebreaker playoff to burn as the winner of the upper bracket.
He couldn’t convert on the first opportunity: the players, who have an extremely drawish record in classical time controls, pushed the series to playoffs again, where So got the better of his opponent and set up a tenth day of play for the title decider.
After the 25+10 rapid games turned out to be a draw, and Nakamura successfully defended a tough endgame in the first 10+5 game with the Black pieces, he had a small but tangible advantage going into the game that could decide the title.
In an incredible example of chess blindness, So, who was already significantly down on the clock, snatched the seemingly undefended pawn on d2 with his queen. He failed to realize Nakamura could easily shut the door on her highness, trapping the invaluable piece in just two moves.
After 18. Rfd1, the queen can’t escape to safety through the d-file, and the pieces on e2 and e3 are protected. No doubt So saw that, and his plan must have been to reroute the queen through b2 and a3 to escape White’s position.
To his horror, White’s straightforward response to 18. – Qb2 is the retreating move 19. Nc4, covering both squares and trapping the queen.
Instead of struggling through a hopelessly lost position with a rook for a queen and six fewer minutes to play with, So resigned on the spot, handing Nakamura a prestigious ninth U.S. championship title and a total of $60,000 in prize money, plus a live classical rating of 2775; the fifth-highest in the world.
