Nakamura Wins BNBank Blitz
Hikaru Nakamura was top seed by some distance at the BNBank Blitz tournament in Oslo, Norway, and duly won, but not without a fight in the final.
The opening stage featured two groups of six players in double round-robin contests, with the top two from each group reaching the semi-finals.
The results were:
1 | Nakamura, Hikaru | USA | 2741 | 10.0 |
2 | Lahno, Kateryna | UKR | 2522 | 6.5 |
3 | Royset, Jon K. | NOR | 2180 | 5.0 |
4 | Daskevics, Vadims | LAT | 2461 | 4.5 |
5 | Muhsen, Abdulla.mohmmed | IRQ | 2185 | 4.0 |
6 | Schmidt, Joshua Paul | NOR | 1428 |
0.0 |
1 | Agdestein, Simen | NOR | 2570 | 8.5 |
2 | Johannessen, Leif Erlend | NOR | 2514 | 7.5 |
3 | Hobber, Anders | NOR | 2196 | 4.5 |
4 | Kovachev, Daniel Jakobsen | NOR | 2307 | 4.0 |
5 | Houska, Jovanka | ENG | 2421 | 3.0 |
6 | Olsen, Anders | NOR | 2081 | 2.5 |
In the semi-finals Simen Agdestein just overcame Kateryna Lahno 3-2, while Nakamura blew away Lief Johannessen 3-0, which took his overall results at that point to 13/13!
However, the final between Nakamura and Agdestein went down to an armageddon match, before the H-Bomb claimed a 3-2 victory.
In the 3/4th playoff Lahno beat Johannessen in a another Armageddon decider.
Sadly, some of the game scores are currently incomplete or unavailable (a common hazard for blitz games) including the Armageddon match in the final.
Joshua Schimdt is an amateur player who won his place in the event with a 2,200 NK bid (approx 360 USD) and lost every game, but probably had a great time nonetheless! Both his games with Nakamura are below.