2012 U.S. Championships News

GM Aleksandr Lenderman finds himself atop the leaderboard after three rounds at the U.S. Championship. Image Credit: Lennart Ootes.

By Brian Jerauld

SAINT LOUIS (May 11, 2014) -- Full-point victories: A dime a dozen for the ladies; but hard to come by for the men.

After ten draws and only two wins since the tournament’s start, the U.S. Championship saw just two more wins in Saturday’s third round. Aleksandr Lenderman’s second victory of the competition set him alone out front with 2.5/3, and Timur Gareev trails with 2/3 after adding a win over Daniel Naroditsky to a pair of draws.

Meanwhile, no one in the U.S. Women’s Championship shows interest in chopping points, with Saturday showcasing another four wins out of five games - though the standings have taken a familiar shape. Irina Krush and Anna Zatonskih, who have split the women’s national title four times each over the last eight years, are tied atop with 2.5/3.

Trailing just a half-point behind the perennials, however, is 13-year-old Ashritha Eswaran, who earned her second point in three rounds in her first-ever appearance in the national championship. The California native turned in her second marathon-endgame dazzler of the tournament on Saturday, this time over Camilla Baginskaite as the women’s tournament heads into a rest day on Mother’s Day.

In the U.S. Championship on Sunday, Lenderman will take the white pieces against Ray Robson, also with 2/3 and tied with Gareev for second place.

Lenderman has led since round one, though not without a bit of luck on his side: Despite being in clear losing positions in both of his first two matches, Lenderman took advantage of two 11th-hour lapses by his opponents to score 1.5 points. His game against Alejandro Ramirez on Saturday, however, was a bit more traditional in the art of winning.

One would think Ramirez is well-booked in the French defense after using it to hold a draw against Gata Kamsky in round 2, but Lenderman came prepped with a shocking line out of the Tarrasch that featured a voluntarily 14...Kf8 before castling. Even more surprising was his follow-up h6-h5 and 16...Ng4 that began Ramirez’ suffering for the rest of the game. His clock was below 15 minutes by move 20.

Ramirez endured the agony for 62 moves, however, clinging to an endgame down an exchange with four scattered pawns before resigning.

“Part of it was prep, but then I didn’t remember all of it, and I was figuring it out at the board,” Lenderman said. “Kf8 I knew. With h5, I was debating if I should play b5 first or stuff like that. I knew h5 was the idea for sure after Ng3, but I couldn’t remember if I played it at the right time; it looks like I did.”

RAMIREZ-LENDERMAN annotated by GM BEN FINEGOLD 

In an extreme reversal of roles, it was the 13-year-old Eswaran who proved to have ice in her veins and, instead, the veteran who fumbled in time pressure. Camilla Baginskaite made an illegal move in her 62nd play, touching her queen while her king was in check and ultimately surrendering the point.

Baginskaite had found early equalization and was even enjoying a lead after her knight found a solid outpost at 14...Nxc5. Then, her follow-up 15...Bg5 forced a trade of the dark-squared bishops and left her knight as the superior minor piece.

But she reacted poorly to Eswaran’s 29. g4, first giving back her advantage with 29...Rc7, which allowed the g-file to open in front of her king, then losing with 31...Rf8. Black dropped a pawn with 26...Qxe4.

Eswaran started pecking away at the queen-and-pawns endgame, but had trouble corralling black’s king - ultimately chasing it back into better position and allowing equalization again at 49...Qg3+. The game appeared to be headed toward a dead draw, despite two pawns promoting on the 57th move to feature four queens on an open board.

But under time pressure, Baginskaite failed to protect her king and instead touched a queen. When the arbiter came to add penalty minutes to Eswaran’s clock, Baginskaite took the moment to simply resign from her long-suffering position.

Zatonskih got a slow start in this year’s tournament when Iryna Zenyuk earned her first half-point ever in seven games against the four-time champion in the first round. But she has caught pace since then with two straight wins, the latest on Saturday over Sabina Foisor, who entered the day with a perfect 2/2 score.

Zatonskih defended against Foisor in the Nimzo-Indian at a slow and methodical pace, chewing up an hour of her clock before her tenth move. By move 13, Zatonskih had just 17 minutes left - though she also had found quick equalization, and eventually a healthy lead.

12. e4 did not work, only setting up a series of captures that left Zatonskih up two pawns. Foisor’s 18. Bxd7 only helped black toward simplification and, despite the time trouble, Zatonskih coasted through an easy endgame.

“My position was very easy - I don’t mean like easy to win, but easy to find moves to play,” Zatonskih said. “It was concrete lines and with a 30 second increment in such a position, it should be enough. I think white needs time in such a position to prove she had compensation for the pawn. For black, it was pretty particular what black was supposed to do.”

Naroditsky, the reigning U.S. Junior Closed Champion, never seemed to get his King’s Indian Defense up and running properly, as Gareev turned an early lead into a slow squeeze by the fundamentals. Already advanced on d5, Gareev pushed 18. e5 as well as 19. f5 to further clog Naroditsky’s already cramped position.

19...f6 rendered the black bishop useless for the rest of the game, and Gareev simply rolled downhill through the endgame.

“Positionally, my situation was looking really good,” Gareev said. “His bishop was stuck, I had more space, my structure was better, my pawns were placed on better colors, my pieces were more active … I was just trying to reduce the uncertainty at that point, and for awhile Daniel was trying to push forward and complicate things. Eventually he just ran out of resources, and we got to the endgame, which was a big advantage for me.”

For a complete replay of all the games, click here. The first of three rest days for the U.S. Women’s Championship is scheduled today, and round 4 of the U.S. Championship begins at 1 p.m. CT, 2 p.m. ET. Catch all the action live at www.uschesschamps.com/live.

13-year-old Ashritha Eswaran stole the show in round 1 with her victory over Viktorija Ni. Image Credit: Lennart Ootes.

By Brian Jerauld

SAINT LOUIS (May 9, 2014) -- Lights! Camera! Quick-draw??

Eyes rolled on the first day of the 2014 U.S. Championship when the marquee matchup -- a fireworks-filled kickoff between top-seeds Timur Gareev and Gata Kamsky -- finished after 14 moves and only 40 minutes in a draw-by-repetition, starting a trend of half-points through an anti-climactic first round.

But while the men started the day snoozing, the 2014 U.S. Women’s Championship got bruising. The ladies took over opening day’s spotlight with just one well-earned draw and four spirited wins, including 13-year-old Ashritha Eswaran’s show-stealing introduction-by-checkmate as the last act of the day.

Taking an early lead with full points in the first round were Tatev Abrahamyan and Sabina Foisor with the white pieces, as well as reigning champion Irina Krush and Eswaran, in her first-ever U.S. Women’s Championship match, as black. In the U.S. Championship, only Ray Robson and Aleksandr Lenderman earned wins, with all other matches drawing.

Putting an extra shine on Eswaran’s endgame over Viktorija Ni was the youngster being all-but written-off an hour before the 84-move epic concluded. After a back-and-forth pendulum of a game, the 50th move saw Ni with considerable control into the endgame, including a rook to Eswaran’s bishop and a king well-positioned to defend black’s passed pawns.

But Ni’s 56. a4, with intentions to spring her b-pawn toward promotion, was incorrectly calculated and did little more than tie up her major piece in defense against Eswaran’s own a-file passer. Both players could have declared draw-by-repetition by move 70, though the back-and-forth only served to build clock time by way of the 30-second increment. Eventually Eswaran found the winning 70...e5, which created a shield to any checks by the white rook, and released the black bishop from a pin -- threatening a surprise checkmate-in-one after 71...Bc4.

Ni was quickly forced into submission as her rook failed to defend Eswaran’s passed connectors and pesky bishop, ultimately seeing her king smothered in the corner.

“I just try to relax and think about the position,” Eswaran said. “No matter what happens, I just try to do my best.”

NI-ESWARAN Analyzed by GM BEN FINEGOLD

Gareev’s chances to make an early statement in the U.S. Championship flopped, despite his 6. Bg5 in an exchange Slav, which seemed to provoke reigning champion Kamsky into early thought. Kamsky chased the white bishop away with 8...h6 9. Bh4 g5 10. Bg3, then threatened the bishop’s existence with 10...Nh5. It was a bishop pair Gareev refused to concede, leading to a repetition and a quick exit from the first round.

“I don’t have to beat Kamsky to get first place,” Gareev said. “The possibilities I saw were more double-edged, rather than necessarily better for me. I figured instead of gambling, I might as well just take it slow and be better in the next round.”

A small victory, perhaps, for Kamsky in the earlygoing.

“I consider it like football: you have to know where to save energy, and you have to know where to spend it and go for a win,” Kamsky said. “The way I played it, I forced him to make a decision right there on the spot whether he wanted to spend time and energy to win this game. He has to make this decision early on, without being able to see the final result or the position that may arise later.”

Also drawing were Varuzhan Akobian-Daniel Naroditsky and Alejandro Ramirez-Sam Shankland in rook-and-pawn endgames, as well as Mackenzie Molner-Alexander Onischuck -- though not without a lack of effort by the 2014 U.S. Championship wildcard.

Molner played a novelty 10. Nd3 in a Queen’s Indian, offering the c4 pawn in exchange for some healthy compensation in activity. But Onischuck’s nifty 16...Nc5 took advantage of a pin on Molner’s d-pawn, allowing the piece to remobilize and easily deal with white’s expedited queenside attack.

“I tried to play a little bit ambitiously by sacrificing the pawn, but it didn’t seem like I ever got more than enough to just keep the balance, never an advantage, it seemed,” Molner said. “(Onischuck) played some good defensive moves, like Nc5. I didn’t realize he was going to bring his knight around to a6; that was a good idea.”

The best game play from the men came from the hand of Ray Robson, who convincingly dismantled Sergey Erenberg's Petrov’s Defense for the full point. The game turned interesting after both sides castled queenside, with Robson creating better lanes and coordination of pieces through the middlegame. The move 25. g6 is when he cashed in his lead, a pawn sacrifice that allowed his rook to the seventh file and a fast track to Erenberg’s king.

“A critical moment was g6, and I think it was a pretty good sacrifice - he just can’t get rid of my rook on the seventh,” Robson said. “I’m going to put one rook on it, and eventually another rook, and he’s going to have big problems. I was a little worried that he might try to play something like Rg1 - he’d still be worse, but he could try to exchange one pair of rooks. I wanted to keep both of my rooks on the board, because eventually the other one is going to come to the seventh as well. He probably still had some chances to defend, but it was very difficult, especially with low time.”

U.S. Open winner Josh Friedel looked comfortable 16 moves into his English opening with Lenderman, enjoying better development and strong central control as part of a decent initiative. But Friedel’s slow-paced plans eventually stalled at 39. a5, allowing Lenderman to grab the momentum. The white army instantly crumbled from the center.

“It was a shifting of the mindset,” Lenderman said. “He was looking for defensive moves, all of a sudden, which could be a little bit tough - especially with lower time. I really thought I might lose this game, after getting outplayed, behind on time and in a position where I was not very comfortable - but I guess I was fortunate.”

Katerina Nemcova came out swinging for her first fight in the U.S. Women’s Championship, after recently switching federations from the Czech Republic, but ultimately succumbed to the five-time reigning U.S. women’s champion Krush. Though Nemcova was already down 35 minutes to Krush’s five after 12 moves, the game was shaping up to be a lively classic Sicilian.

Nemcova’s seemingly harmless 19. Nc3, removing her knight from the rim, was responded by Krush’s surprise 19...a5 and dubious follow-up 20...Qb8 to exchange her bishop for a rook three moves later. Two moves later, Nemcova was playing on the 30-second increment.

But she did not go quietly. Quick moves, and a pesky knight and queen, continued a proper harassment of Krush’s exposed king and gave fits to black’s endgame, despite featuring connected, passed pawns. The game continued through the 57th move before Krush finally broke through.

For a complete listing of the standings and round 2 pairings, visit http://www.uschesschamps.com/node/429.

Tune into live play-by-play of round 2 today at 1 p.m. CT, 2 p.m. ET with GMs Yasser Seirawan and Maurice ashley and WGM Jennifer Shahade at www.uschesschamps.com/live.