GM Hikaru Nakamura defeated GM Liem Le 13.5-11.5 in the Speed Chess Championship 2025 Round of 16 on October 17. Though Nakamura dominated the first two portions of the match, it was in the bullet segment, surprisingly, that Le nearly made a heroic comeback.
The next Round of 16 match, between GM Hans Niemann vs. GM Ding Liren, will be on Monday, October 27 at 9:00 a.m. ET / 15:00 CEST / 6:30 p.m. IST.
Nakamura advances to the Quarterfinals, where he will face GM Wesley So.
2025 Speed Chess Championship Bracket
Nakamura 13.5-11.5 Le
There have only been two players to win the SCC since 2016, Nakamura and GM Magnus Carlsen. Le won the 2013 World Blitz Championship, but this was his debut in the SCC. Nakamura was estimated to have a 99 percent chance of winning the match.
It’s no big surprise that Nakamura won the match, but nobody could have predicted what happened in the bullet segment. Le nearly cut down the seven-point lead that Nakamura had amassed in the first two portions.
5+1: Nakamura 4.5-2.5 Le
Nakamura usually wins his first match by a landslide, and that’s pretty much what we saw in the first two portions. Last year, against GM Jose Martinez, Nakamura won the full match 14-8.
In defiance of the match pre-prediction, Le won game one convincingly. He was much better out of the opening, when Nakamura had to passively park his rook on a2, and converted a clean game, at least until the very end. Both players missed that Nakamura could have won the exchange on one move, and then a whole rook a few moves later, before the game ended as expected.
Le looked like he was on his way to winning a second game in a row when he sacrificed his queen, but he only had about 10 seconds on the clock against two minutes. In time trouble, he hung a pawn, then an exchange, and then a full knight, and Nakamura evened the score. Nakamura’s speedy trickery would work magic many more times in this match.
In game three, Nakamura played a temporary piece sacrifice to take the lead, while game four—the first draw—was the most unstable game yet. Both players had winning positions in the time scramble, but in the end they repeated three times.
When they returned from the break, game five looked like it was heading for another draw, this time in a theoretically drawn rook endgame. Nakamura reportedly told his viewers he’d gift 100 subs if he won it, obviously without expecting to, but then he suddenly did! Le collapsed under the time pressure, causing Nakamura to win the game and lose the bet he made.
Nakamura wins the theoretically drawn rook endgame after putting pressure on the clock!https://t.co/ya3nWYy2co#SpeedChess pic.twitter.com/djo9dlYlVh
— chess24 (@chess24com) October 17, 2025
In the game that followed, Le won two pawns and converted cleanly to cut the lead down to one. He looked to be winning the next game, too, with the better knight vs. bishop, but Nakamura swindled his way to a two-point lead, generating an outside passed a-pawn thanks to a mistake by his opponent in time trouble.
3+1: Nakamura 6.5-1.5 Le
Nakamura put together a dominant performance in the second portion, building a seven-point match lead.
He started by winning the first two games. In game one, he won on time in a pawn-up position that was defensible for his opponent. Then he won again, with two pawns vs. one pawn on the same side of the board in a knight endgame, something that should be a trivial draw.
Hambleton commented that for a player of Le’s caliber, losing such positions is “unfathomable” no matter who the opponent is.
Aman says it’s “unfathomable for a player at that level to lose” another drawn ending. “I can’t believe what we’re witnessing here. It’s a true masterclass from Hikaru.”
“Hikaru Nakamura is the only player in the world who can make this magic happen,” adds Tania.#SpeedChess pic.twitter.com/zyOqxCbVen
— chess24 (@chess24com) October 17, 2025
Le finally stopped the bleeding by holding a draw in another knight endgame, but bled again after a resignation in just 17 moves in the next game as Nakamura took a five-point lead.
Le bounced back with his third win by trapping Nakamura’s queen.
But Nakamura won the last three games of the segment. First, Le dropped a bishop in an endgame (though he was losing anyway), and then Nakamura found a nice tactical blow to win again, offering his knight and then the bishop.
The last game was just as flashy, as Nakamura sacrificed a knight for a killer attack, taking an 11-4 lead.
1+1: Nakamura 2.5-7.5 Le
The bullet segment is supposed to be Nakamura’s specialty, so nobody could have predicted what would happen next. Le dominated, but Nakamura had given himself such a lead going in that his match victory was never quite challenged.
Nakamura won game one from a losing position, as you can see in the clip below, and it looked like he was going to run away with it.
Le won game two and missed a chance, with a draw, in game three. But what happened next was the highlight: Le won the next four games in a row. In the first contest of that string, Le had a checkmating attack, despite White having two queens on the board.
Le wins a second game and takes the lead in the bullet portion, though Hikaru’s way ahead in the match!https://t.co/ifXSir7TNJ#SpeedChess pic.twitter.com/QbkfpG1tAC
— chess24 (@chess24com) October 17, 2025
Nakamura finally stopped the bleeding with one win, but then Le won another two to finish the match. The penultimate game featured a crushing victory for the Vietnamese GM, who achieved a winning advantage in the middlegame despite equal material.
The next match will be in 10 days. Who do you predict will win, the former world champion or the younger up-and-comer? Let us know in the comments below!
The Speed Chess Championship, which starts on October 12 and culminates with Live Finals on February 8, 2026 in London, is Chess.com’s most important speed chess event. Some of the biggest names in chess compete to determine the best speed chess player in the world. The games are played with time controls of 5+1, 3+1, and 1+1. The prize fund is $250,000.
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