Nakamura spent 67 minutes thinking about his move.

“That Was a Big Mistake.” Nakamura Spent More Than 67 Minutes on a Move — and Lost After It

At the Candidates Tournament, every mistake is seen especially clearly. But sometimes a game produces a moment that stands out even by the brutal standards of this event. In round five, Hikaru Nakamura spent almost 67 minutes and 44 seconds thinking over his 13th move, finally chose 13.h3?!, and after that gradually collapsed in his game against Javokhir Sindarov. Chess.com wrote directly that after this decision Nakamura “sank without a trace,” while the American grandmaster himself later admitted: “That was a big mistake.”

One Move That Became the Story of the Entire Round

Nakamura entered the game against Sindarov as one of the main favorites of the tournament. But already in the opening, it became clear that this was not an ordinary cautious struggle, but a very uncomfortable search for a path in a position where the American did not feel confident. That is exactly why his prolonged thought over move 13 immediately became the theme of the day. According to Chess.com, it was the second-longest single move in modern Candidates history, and the decision made after such a think turned out to be the wrong one.

That is where the drama of the game was born.
When a chess player spends more than an hour on one move, people expect an almost perfect decision. But in chess, psychological pressure works mercilessly: the longer you sit over a position, the more painful the mistake looks if it still happens. In Nakamura’s case, that is exactly what happened. After 13.h3?!, which Chess.com contrasted with the stronger idea 13.Ne4, the initiative effectively passed to his opponent.

Why This Move Turned Out to Be So Bad

The main problem was not only that Nakamura chose a suboptimal move. The real trouble was that he spent a colossal amount of time and still failed to solve his positional problems. Chess.com notes that after this decision it became clear that the American was left without a clear plan and found himself in a very difficult practical situation. Sindarov, on the contrary, quickly understood that the chance in front of him was one he could not afford to miss.

In games like these, the opponent senses weakness almost instantly.
You see that the person across from you has spent more than an hour on a move and still placed the pieces on the wrong squares. For an elite grandmaster, that is a signal: the position is no longer under control, and now it is time to press for real. That is exactly how Sindarov played. His tournament form was already magnificent, and here he also gained a psychological edge at the exact moment when Nakamura clearly began to doubt himself.

“That Was a Big Mistake”

What gives this story special force is that Nakamura himself did not hide behind vague wording. In a quote highlighted in Chess.com’s social-media retelling, he admitted that this exact moment became the turning point: “That was a big mistake.” In another fragment of his comments about his difficult start to the tournament, he also said: “I just relaxed… that was my first big mistake.” Both remarks convey the mood very well: Nakamura understood that the decisive breakdown did not happen somewhere near the end, but precisely in that phase when he spent too long searching for the right continuation and still failed to find it.

For fans, this is always an especially painful spectacle.
It is one thing to see a beautiful defeat after a complicated fight. It is something entirely different to watch one bad choice after an hour of thought literally break the whole game apart. At that moment, the drama becomes almost cinematic: long waiting, tension, the decision — and immediately after it, the slow collapse of the entire structure.

Sindarov Smelled Blood

While Nakamura was painfully searching for the right path, Javokhir Sindarov kept doing what had already become the main story of the tournament: cold-bloodedly punishing even elite opponents. After this round, Sindarov reached 4.5 points out of 5 and strengthened his lead. Chess.com called his run through the event a “dream run”, while Hindustan Times described the Uzbek grandmaster’s reaction after Nakamura’s move in almost predatory terms: he saw the mistake and immediately understood that he could go for the full point.

That is a very important context.
Nakamura did not lose simply to a good opponent, but to the player who at that moment already looked like the hottest competitor in the entire tournament. But that is exactly why Hikaru’s mistake feels even more costly: against such an opponent, you cannot afford to give away a tempo, a weakness, or a psychological pause an hour long. Sindarov is too confident, too well prepared, and too quick to punish such things.

Why This Game Hits Nakamura So Hard

The Candidates Tournament does not like cautious explanations. Here, the score in the standings always sounds louder than excuses. After his loss to Sindarov, Nakamura found himself in a situation where the leader had already begun to pull away, and every new slip now turns not just into the loss of a point, but into the loss of strategic tempo over the whole distance. Chess.com emphasized that after round five, Sindarov had 4.5/5, and only Fabiano Caruana remained within one win of him. For Nakamura, that meant that the right to make further mistakes was becoming almost a luxury.

That is exactly why the story of the 67-minute think looks so loud.
It is not just a curious statistical fact. It is a moment that may stay in memory as the symbol of a bad day: you sat over one move longer than almost anyone, tried to find salvation, and instead opened the door to defeat with your own hands.

Conclusion

Nakamura’s game against Sindarov in round five became one of the most memorable of the tournament not because of a beautiful sacrifice and not because of a fantastic mate. It was remembered for something else: 67 minutes and 44 seconds on one move, then a mistake, then Nakamura’s own honest admission that it was a “big mistake,” and then — defeat.

In chess, sometimes the decisive moment is not the most spectacular one, but the most painful one.
For Hikaru, that 13th move became exactly that kind of episode — one of those rare moments when searching too long for an answer leads not to salvation, but to an even heavier fall.