 Hikaru Nakamura strikes back with a brilliant win against Ithurizaga in round six of the Gibraltar Masters. Join us as he's in our studio. Hikaru, a brutal game with the white pieces. You seem to be channeling your inner alpha zero today. Yeah, actually, I guess it was a Queens Indian, so it was kind of similar. It was a very interesting game. I was not expecting to sack an exchange. I kind of overlooked this Queens six move. I thought it was just much better, but then I didn't really have much of a choice, so I had to go 90-294 in this whole 96 line. Now that I've seen a little bit of the computer evaluation, it seems like white's always better, but if my opponent, Eduardo, had played Queen takes a two instead of Bishop e5, I wasn't 100% sure what was going on. Once he played Bishop e5, and I got in Bishop a four, I felt that it was just always winning because black never develops the queen side pieces. It turned out to be a lot smoother than it probably should have been if he had played Queen a two, but nonetheless, it's still a nice one. Right, when you sacrificed the exchange, it was not winning immediately. What's the thought process at that point when you can't really calculate it till the end? Is it just a feeling? Well, the problem is I would just be down upon if I didn't sack the exchange. I used about 15 minutes, and I didn't see anything better. If I saw something else, maybe I would have played it, but there literally were no other moves where I wasn't even just flat out worse, so it made a lot of sense. Then yeah, I figured there had to be some chances. Maybe I'm losing, but with the knight on d6, and the fact that black is two pieces that are out of the game, I felt that there should always be good opportunities to attack, and he also was low on time, so it just felt like the right practical decision. So black's problem of not being able to develop on the queen side was the biggest issue in his position? Yeah, he had the knight on b and the rook on a8, and he couldn't develop either of them towards the center. The knight had to go to a6 b4, and unless black can run the a pawn down the board really fast, he's always just going to get killed on the king side by the queen, the knight, and the bishop. So yeah, it's very much a theme and a motif from the game to be able to sack the exchange and then just attack on the king side, and I mean, it turns out just to be very strong. So it's probably a great game for teachers to show their kids. That's a great advice. Now, you had a tough start here, picking up the pace now? Yeah, I mean, I always find a way to get up there sooner or later, so I mean, obviously, we're still quite early in the event. There's still four more rounds, but nonetheless, I'm going to have my chance, and that's really all you can hope for. I think you need to get a little bit of luck, kind of at the start to sort of get the engine going. And I won a couple of games in rounds three and four that were quite difficult, and then yesterday was pretty good, and today was even better. So things seem to be looking up for me. You are known to make quite the comebacks. How would you evaluate your play so far in the event? I would say my play has been okay, okay for the first four days, and I would say good the last two days. So it seems the trend seems to be going in the right direction. Yesterday night, we had the Battle of the Sexes, and the men's team really missed you there. They went down to the women's team. I didn't actually follow it. I think as the people who are watching the stream will know, I was kind of doing my own internet show last night. But nonetheless, I guess the women played better than the men. I saw the first game, but that was it. So I guess the women were just flat out better. And I didn't play Maxime didn't play and LaVon didn't play. So you can't just blame me for that. I'm sure you will miss and give us your impressions about Gibraltar so far. It's quite nice. The weather's been good. I haven't really gotten out much this year, only gone to supermarket twice. But in general, the weather is good. And if the weather is good, general, I'm going to be in a good, good mood. So things are going great. I like it here. Also, your dad's been with you the last few rounds, you think that's also helped you? Maybe a little bit. I think, I mean, I don't think it's made a huge difference. But I think certainly having having people around is always better than not having people around. So if anything, it's positive. But I don't think it's like it's not the main reason that I'm playing well and doing well. So Nilsen right here, and he's not very happy with your answer. But thank you so much for joining us. We wish you all the best for the remaining games. Thank you. Thanks, Karu.