Hikarua Nakamura defeated Magnus Carlsen 3-1 in the final of the BNbank Blitz tournament, held Saturday, November 28th in Oslo, Norway. Carlsen won the first game and had good positions in games 2 and 4, but Nakamura had the strongest nerves.

The one-day blitz tourney sponsored by BNBank, a Norwegian retail and corporate bank, took place in Oslo Central Station on Saturday, November 28. Six blitz tournaments took place already on October 31st in Norway in the cities of Oslo, Bergen, Stavanger, Tromso, Trondheim and Porsgrunn. The winner from each city earned a spot in the final in Oslo, where ten invited world class players were also present, and the prize fund was 74,000 NOK (app. 8,700 Euros).

The participants were GM Magnus Carlsen (2802, NOR), GM Hikaru Nakamura (2715, USA), GM Peter Heine Nielsen (2697, DEN), 4. GM Emanuel Berg (2594, SWE), 5. GM Jon Ludvig Hammer (2588, NOR), 6. GM Kjetil A. Lie (2547, NOR), 7. IM Viktorija Cmilyte (2480, LTU), 8. GM Monica Socko (2457) POL), 9. WIM Ellen Hagesæther (2269, NOR), 10. GM Leif Erlend Johannessen (2528, NOR), 11. Anders Hobber (2132, NOR, winner of the qualifier in Porsgrunn), 12. Daniel Kovachev (2243, NOR, winner of the qualifier in Oslo), 13. FM Kjetil Stokke (2382, NOR, winner of the qualifier in Bergen), 14. Pal Andreas Hansen (2072, NOR, winner of the qualifier in Trondheim), 15. FM Vadims Daskevics (2380, LAT, winner of the qualifier in Stavanger) and 16. Peter Flermoen (NOR, 2100, second place in the qualifier in Tromsø).

In the preliminary rounds the players were divided into 4 double round-robin groups. Two players from each group qualified for the quarter-finals. The time control was 3 minutes + 2 seconds increment per move. All results are nicely put together on this page of the tournament website.

Below are all available games for replay; unfortunately only the top 2 boards of each round were recorded. Below the viewer there are four videos of the final. Carlsen was dominating in the first two games, but his 62.Kf6?? in game 2 turned a won pawn endgame into a lost one. It had a devastating effect and eventually the reigning World Blitz champion had to acknowledge defeat after four games. The king of online blitz, Hikaru Nakamura, beat Magnus Carlsen 3-1.

Game viewer

Game viewer by ChessTempo

Here are the games of the final, posted on YouTube by Todd Freitag:

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Links

• Official website
• Games in PGN