naka pawn on the queen side decided the game and the fact that he calculate faster in crunch time, he could play bullet chess in this end game position just like he do always at icc and most usually playing in this kind of ending....

i got that feeling as the time drop to 10 minute that naka will get superior position as the game drop to 3 minute.

click for larger view

do you think changing the time control would change nakas performance?

right.

as the clock go down and further down nakas position is improving.

i feel that naka is grinding the game to the last 3 minute and only he would create problem and complication.thats the reason i say this time control suit him and not his opponenet.

Nakamura wins yet *again*! 4.5/5!

Woohoo!

GO NAKA!

<Round 5: "The Art of Surprise!"

In the fifth round, I got Black against local Spaniard GM, Pablo San Segundo who at 2577 is the lowest rated player in the group. Although, San Segundo has not had an inspiring event overall, he has played quite solidly and were it not for an unfortunate oversight and a flag against Granda in a very complicated position, he would be undefeated. Over the past few years, I have a penchant of finding ways into trouble against lower ranked players in round robins. Case in point was back in 2007 when I was leading the Magistral event in Barcelona by 1.5 points after seven rounds only to go and lose to GM Oms who was the bottom seed. This led to a lot of unnecessary drama although I managed to win a highly dramatic last round game against GM Narciso to take the title. This time around, I really wanted to avoid such drama. Nevertheless, I decided to play the Cambridge-Springs for the first time (in a rated game) in my life. After the first nine moves of standard theory, I chose to play something off the beaten path when I chose 9...e5. Although this occurred in Kasparov-Smyslov, 1984, I was not particularly impressed with White's play. That being said, the first surprise was when San Segundo allowed queens to come off the board with 14.cxd4. Even if he had chosen to play 14.exd4 0-0 15. 0-0 b5!? I thought that I was better. In the end, we went into a long endgame which I probably was winning in a much simpler way than how it actually went. Luckily though, I never was in any real danger of losing. With this monster win it put me on 4.5/5 and a point clear of the lead as Ponomariov was only able to draw against Movsesian in a Catalan. >