Garry’s comeback

To great surprise, the former world champion Garry Kasparov staged a brief comeback when he participated in a blitz tournament held to celebrate the close of this year’s US Championship. His opponents were the top three from the championship and an 18-round competition resulted in the following scores: Nakamura 11, So 10, Kasparov 9½ and Caruana 5½.
 
It is astounding that at the age of 53, with no tournament practice whatsoever for some time, Kasparov can hold his own with the young tigers of the contemporary chess scene. Indeed, had he converted two winning positions against Wesley So, he would have emerged as the clear victor. Instead, in both cases, bad blunders transformed near-triumph into loss for him. Here are some key moments from this interesting tournament.
 
Nakamura-Kasparov: Ultimate Blitz Challenge, Saint Louis 2016 (see diagram 1)
 
Here Kasparov can win easily with 41 … Rxe5! 42 Nxe5 (42 fxe5 Rxd7 is straightforward) 42 … Ra8 43 Rc1 b3.