2018 Carlsen - Nakamura : Resources

In my previous post, 2018 Carlsen - Nakamura, I wrote,

The match generated considerable interest about 'Fischer Random Chess960' (as someone called it during the match and which is a good compromise to avoid the confusion surrounding the two names) and I'll have more to say about that in a follow-up post.

For consistent, top-level reporting on the match, you can't beat the resources shown in the following table. The first column leads to a record of the live commentary. The other two columns are for leading chess news sources that put considerable effort into covering the match. All three resources also allowed comments, which are an important part of the record.

Twitch (Video)	Chess.com (Peter Doggers)	Chessbase (Macauley Peterson)
Pre-match	2018-02-06: Chess.com To Cover Carlsen - Nakamura Match	2018-02-09: Carlsen, Nakamura in high-stakes C960 match
2018-02-09: Day 1 Part 1 Part 2	Nakamura - Carlsen FRC Tied After Day 1	C960: Nakamura and Carlsen start with two draws
2018-02-10: Day 2 Part 1 Part 2	FRC Day 2: Nakamura Blunders Queen	C960: Carlsen grabs a point from Nakamura
2018-02-11: Day 3	'Black Sunday' Delivers Exciting FRC	C960: Two wins on day three
2018-02-12: Day 4	Carlsen Wins, Then Flags vs Nakamura In FRC Day 4	C960: Nakamura flags Carlsen to keep match close
2018-02-13: Final Day	Carlsen Wins FRC Championship	Carlsen adds a new title: C960 champion
Post-match		C960 revisited: Grandmaster analysis

I collected dozens of other references -- many well informed, some not-so-well -- but I'll leave those for another day. The table in this post gives me more than enough material to fill my chess960 time.

2018 Carlsen - Nakamura

In what was billed as 'The Unofficial World Championship in Fischer Random Chess', the official World Chess Champion, GM Magnus Carlsen, beat the unofficial World Rapid Chess960 Champion, GM Hikaru Nakamura (*). Details about the match can be found on the official site Fischer Random Chess (frchess.com). GM Carlsen won the first set of eight 'slow rapid chess' games with

+3-2=3 >> 9.0-7.0 (2 points per game);

then reached the required score of 12.5 in the 'fast rapid chess' games with

+2-0=3 >> 3.5-1.5 (1 point per game);

then finished the 'fast rapid' portion of the match with

+1-1=1 >> 1.5-1.5;

to achieve an overall score of 14.0-10.0. A summary of the match regulations can be found in my previous post, A World Class Match and Some Top-level Games (January 2018).

The match generated considerable interest about 'Fischer Random Chess960' (as someone called it during the match and which is a good compromise to avoid the confusion surrounding the two names) and I'll have more to say about that in a follow-up post. In the meantime, here is a copy of the PGN game scores for the match, and here are some statistics from this blog.

The top half of the chart, 'Views', shows page views per day over the period mid-January to mid-February 2018, where a typical day is mid-two-digits. The bottom half, 'Audience' shows the origins of the visitors; (let's have a round of applause for Brazil and France!). On my main blog, I wrote a post about the atypical setting for the match: Bobby Speaks from the Grave.

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(*) See No Place for Chess960 (February 2011), for an overview of 'Chess960 Classic Mainz' and its various World Championships, where GM Nakamura was the last winner of the main event.