Hikaru Nakamura

World No.2, streamer

“It’s abundantly clear to me that a lot of players when they play against Magnus, they still don’t take into account the play style and what Magnus’ strengths are relative to other players. It was very clear to me that in this final match, Nodirbek was treating Magnus like he was any other player.

Maybe on one hand that could work, but I think generally not understanding that Magnus’ big strength is always going to be endgame and positional play, and not trying to avoid that at all costs really hurt Nodirbek. Because, even though Magnus got low on time at the end of these two black games that he won, it was an endgame which was simplified and easy to play and therefore time was not a factor.”