A convincing victory over Hikaru Nakamura in the 2nd round of the Sinquefield Cup 2015 helped Veselin Topalov take an early lead in this 9-round Super Tournament.
The Topalov-Nakamura encounter commenced with a popular variation in the Ruy Lopez. Soon, a complicated position was reached thanks to Topalov’s interesting pawn sacrifice on move 16. Topalov followed up this sacrifice excellently – winning the pawn back after a few moves and keeping the pressure on Nakamura. The latter finally crumbled under pressure and Topalov rounded off the game on move 73.
Meanwhile, defending champion Fabiano Caruana and World No. 2 Viswanathan Anand lost their second consecutive game on the trot as they went down to Magnus Carlsen and Alexander Grischuk respectively.
Round 2 Results:
|
White |
Result | Black |
| Grischuk | 1-0 |
Anand |
|
Topalov |
1-0 | Nakamura |
| Vachier-Lagrave | ½-½ |
Aronian |
|
Giri |
½-½ | So |
| Caruana | 0-1 |
Carlsen |