2012 U.S. Championships News
By Mike Klein
GMs Hikaru Nakamura and Gata Kamsky entered round nine of the 2012 U.S. Championship tied with six points apiece. They could not have had more different days.
Kamsky won largely without any over-the-board effort, defeating GM Yasser Seirawan in a little more than two hours by using a spectacular combination. He had most of the moves worked out well in advance.
Nakamura labored for nearly six hours and 121 moves but could not break through against the stubborn defense of GM Alex Lenderman. He reluctantly agreed to a draw. His matchup with Kamsky tomorrow will mean he is playing from behind for the first time in the tournament. Kamsky now has seven points, while Nakamura is at 6.5.
Kamsky played the first 25 moves effectively in negative time, as the 30-second increment for every move offered him five more minutes than he began. His sacrifice 22. Bxh6 was played automatically, and a stunned Seirawan ran low on time contemplating the combination. The superior preparation netted the defending champion Kamsky a pain-free win.
“I knew yesterday he would play the Caro-Kann,” Kamsky said. He reviewed the opening again this morning, and Seirawan walked right into some preparation that Kamsky had saved from several years ago. “There are so many lines to prepare for, the chance that you will go into this one is terribly small,” Kamsky said.
Seirawan guessed that he may have actually seen the trap before, but failed to remember the intricacies. Unbeknownst to him, all moves up until 24...Nxd7 had occurred over Kamsky's practice board before. If Seirawan had not sacrifice his queen, then after 23...Nxd7 24. Qd2 Kh7 25. Ng4 is incontrovertible proof of the soundness of the attack.
Meanwhile, Kamsky's rival Nakamura had his hands full trying to inject life into his game with the much lower-rated Lenderman. The night before, Lenderman lost his first game of the tournament to Kamsky, and remarked that he needed more practice playing against 2700s. He got copious amounts of board time with another 2700 today.
After Nakamura reverted back to his usual 1. d4, a Nimzo-Indian led to both kings castling on the queenside. The board soon locked up, and Nakamura spent 40 moves shuffling his pieces around the back ranks searching for the right time to break through. His king traveled east as far as it could, and finally a c-file breakthrough was attempted. Just when it seemed the newfound pressure would be too much to bear, Lenderman deftly sacrificed a few pawns to engineer an endgame blockade. Two pawns to the good, Nakamura admitted he was out of ideas and whispered, “Draw?” to his opponent. After playing the sixth-longest game in U.S. Championship history, mostly idling or on defense, Lenderman agreed without hesitation.
Fellow competitors GM Robert Hess and GM Alejandro Ramirez came up to ask Lenderman why he did not play on, as they deemed his position better. “I didn't expect I could possibly have winning chances,” Lenderman said.
Kamsky will take white versus Nakamura tomorrow. If Kamsky is able to win, he will clinch his third consecutive national championship.
GM Alex Onischuk, the third seed, maintained exactly that place by sacrificing the exchange against GM Gregory Kaidanov. His multiple passed pawns were too much to handle in the endgame. Onischuk, whose performance rating is more than 2700, is the only other player who is mathematically alive for the title, though his chances are extremely slim.
In the 2012 U.S. Women's Championship, both leaders won to keep pace with each other, though IMs Irina Krush and Anna Zatonskih were both worse in their respective games today.
“I did get what I wanted from the opening, but I played a really bad move – Rb1,” Krush said. “I played this game like a patzer.”
Hess said that if Krush's opponent, the lowest-ranked player in the field WFM Alena Kats, played 19...Ba4 instead of 19...Bc4, then Krush's rook would either be lost, or would move away and allow the advance of Kats's dangerous d-pawn. “My openings are terrible,” Kats said. “I'm going to study more. My junior year in high school was so busy.”
Zatonskih also had a worse position according to pundits. Her opponent, IM Rusudan Goletiani, had a healthy space advantage and the only bishop on the board. Zatonskih cleared out the long diagonal, then began focusing on Goletiani's errant knight on h4. Goletiani had to retreat to rescue her steed, and Zatonskih's pieces overwhelmed the position. Goletiani tried the same desperate strategy as yesterday, pushing all of her pawns at her opponent's king, but without queens on the board, there was not enough counterplay.
Goletiani dropped into a three-way tie for third with WGM Sabina Foisor and WGM Tatev Abrahamyan. Foisor drew miraculously today when her opponent, WIM Viktorija Ni, played beautifully but inexplicably botched a king-and-pawn ending. Instead of 67. f3, which resulted in a draw, the direct 67. Kxh6 wins, as Foisor would then have to chase down Ni's pawns even farther.
The title will go to either Krush or Zatonskih. If one woman manages to win in round nine and the other does not, a clear winner will emerge. If not, a playoff Sunday will ensue. The women get an off day tomorrow while the U.S. Championship resumes Friday for round 10.
Tune in to www.uschesschamps.com at 1 p.m. Central, 2 p.m. Eastern for live commentary from GM Ben Finegold and WGM Jennifer Shahade.
In other action today:
By FM Mike Klein
The 2012 U.S. Championship and U.S. Women's Championship did not change leadership today, though the two tournaments produced much different levels of excitement.
With the two top seeds in each division pulling away from the pack, GM Gata Kamsky exuded his usual perfection in positional chess to give GM Alex Lenderman his first loss of the event. That left the crowd watching to see if GM Hikaru Nakamura, the top seed in the U.S. Championship, could keep pace.
After an unusual French Defense led to a stolid middlegame with no obvious breakthrough, it looked like Nakamura and GM Alex Stripunsky would admit the impasse and agree to a draw. After his own game ended, Kamsky looked on from the press room and had a different opinion. He suggested Nakamura prepare his f-pawn's advance, which Nakamura managed in due time. “White has no counterplay and is lost completely,” Kamsky concluded almost instantly.
Sensing the infiltration, Stripunsky was unwilling to wait for the inevitable. He sacrificed a piece, then the exchange, then later, with his time running out, another exchange. The final salvo proved too much. Though he engineered a quintet of passed pawns, Nakamura's rook took post on the eighth rank to parry all the possible promotions. Stripunsky saw his pawns were stuck and resigned. After the game, a quick analysis by the players produced a myriad of variations. Enlisting the help of other players produced more questions than answers. “White's winning, no black's winning, no white's winning,” GM Yasser Seirawan said.
Kamsky's win lacked similar drama. After repulsing any queenside attacking ideas, he eventually advanced five pawns to the fifth rank in picturesque uniformity. After 18...Bh5, Kamsky said his position was “completely OK.” Then he took a closer look and declared, “Actually, maybe it's not so pleasant for white.” The space advantage, coupled with a belligerent knight, was too much for Lenderman to handle.
“The game got away from me quickly somehow,” a flummoxed Lenderman said. “There were so many choices for white, but I couldn't find a way to make the maximum of all my pieces. I was trying to calculate lines before outlining strategic possibilities.” In a moment of extreme candor from the 22-year-old, he added, “The position was just too complicated for me. Chess understanding is just not there for me. Good thing I am playing in this tournament. I keep trying to make 'professor' moves where I try to do too much. I keep making this mistake against 2700s.”
Kamsky and Nakamura both have 6/8 and will play each other on Friday. Should there be a winner, he will be the betting favorite to win the title.
Chasing the two leaders is a trio of grandmasters. GMs Alex Onischuk, Varuzhan Akobian and Yury Shulman all have 4.5/8. Taken together, the top five men comprise the U.S. Olympiad team from 2008, the last time the squad won a team medal.
Akobian won the only other decisive game of the day, besting GM Alejandro Ramirez in a wild game. “It was an unusual position,” Akobian said. Ramirez pushed ...c5, ...b5, ...f5 and ...g5 all in the first 11 moves. He left his center pawns at home while traversing his queen from one rook file to the other. “I was a little too optimistic,” Ramirez replied. “I wanted to play something interesting, but it backfired.”
Akobian said he spent 20 minutes in the opening calculating the unusual tactic 8. b4. If 8...axb3 e.p., the queen hangs. If 8...Qxb4, 9. Rb1 skewers the queen to the bishop. But if 8...cxb4 the pawn blocks the diagonal pin so 9. Nxe4 is possible. A possible variation is 9...b3+ 10. Ned2 b2 11. Ra2 a3 12. e4 Na6 (heading to b4) 13. Bxa6 Bxa6. Upon seeing this position, both players liked their position. Ramirez thought the b2-pawn and white's inability to castle offset his material loss. Ultimately, Akobian said he could not accurately evaluate the position, and headed for calmer waters with 8. c3.
GM Gregory Kaidanov played his second queen versus three minor piece game, this time departing with the monarch to try his hand with the knights and bishops. Earlier in the tournament, GM Robert Hess trapped Kaidanov's queen on the back rank. This time the queen had more space, but with no major weaknesses for either side, Kaidanov and his former student, GM Ray Robson, agreed to a draw.
In the women's side of the playing hall, IMs Zatonskih and Krush renewed their annual rivalry in round 7. Though a great majority of the their previous contests had produced a winner, Krush had little incentive to go for an unbalanced game. Playing Black, Krush liquidated the position's energy and the ladies agreed to a lifeless draw. They both still lead with 5/7.
Zatonskih regretted the move 12. Bf4, which allowed Krush to centralize with 12...Nd5 and win a tempo. “It is just fantastic how I played this,” Zatonskih said, chastising herself. She was using the literal connotation of “fantastic,” expressing that the move was unexplainable and bad. Afterward, she thought for 40 minutes.
Krush said a plan with b4 would have created a few problems for her, but ultimately she was never worried. “I just tried to play solid today,” she said. Although her pairings for the final two rounds are significantly easier than Zatonskih's, Krush said, “The tournament is not over. There's no reason to be joyous.”
The players shared a funny possible drawing line. If 15...a6 16. Nbc3 Nd4 17. Rc1 Nb3 18. Rc2 Nd4 19. Rd2 Nb3 20. Rd3 Nc1 and the rook either returns or goes wandering aimlessly.
IM Rusudan Goletiani took sole possession of third place after her win against WGM Tatev Abrahamyan. With a pawn deficit and short on time, Goletiani threw all of her pawns at her opponent's castled king, breaking through for the point. While she does not control her own destiny, Goletiani faces Zatonskih tomorrow as white in a game both women will be trying to win to stay alive for first place. If Zatonskih wins, Goletiani will be mathematically eliminated from title contention.
WGM Sabina Foisor was the only other winner of the round. She used the Samisch Variation to beat FM Alisa Melekhina's favorite King's Indian Defense. With king's castled on opposite sides, Melekhina could not open an attack, and eventually ceded control of the only open file. Foisor's rook took control and dominated in the endgame. Foisor is in sole fourth place with 4/7.
In other action today:
Round nine for the U.S. Championship and round eight for the U.S. Women's Championship will begin tomorrow at 1 p.m. Central, 2 p.m. Eastern. Come visit the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis or tune in to www.uschesschamps.org for live commentary from WGM Jennifer Shahade and the club's GM-in-Residence Ben Finegold.
By FM Mike Klein
The 2012 U.S. Championship and U.S. Women's Championship did not change leadership today, though the two tournaments produced much different levels of excitement.
With the two top seeds in each division pulling away from the pack, GM Gata Kamsky exuded his usual perfection in positional chess to give GM Alex Lenderman his first loss of the event. That left the crowd watching to see if GM Hikaru Nakamura, the top seed in the U.S. Championship, could keep pace.
After an unusual French Defense led to a stolid middlegame with no obvious breakthrough, it looked like Nakamura and GM Alex Stripunsky would admit the impasse and agree to a draw. After his own game ended, Kamsky looked on from the press room and had a different opinion. He suggested Nakamura prepare his f-pawn's advance, which Nakamura managed in due time. “White has no counterplay and is lost completely,” Kamsky concluded almost instantly.
Sensing the infiltration, Stripunsky was unwilling to wait for the inevitable. He sacrificed a piece, then the exchange, then later, with his time running out, another exchange. The final salvo proved too much. Though he engineered a quintet of passed pawns, Nakamura's rook took post on the eighth rank to parry all the possible promotions. Stripunsky saw his pawns were stuck and resigned. After the game, a quick analysis by the players produced a myriad of variations. Enlisting the help of other players produced more questions than answers. “White's winning, no black's winning, no white's winning,” GM Yasser Seirawan said.
Kamsky's win lacked similar drama. After repulsing any queenside attacking ideas, he eventually advanced five pawns to the fifth rank in picturesque uniformity. After 18...Bh5, Kamsky said his position was “completely OK.” Then he took a closer look and declared, “Actually, maybe it's not so pleasant for white.” The space advantage, coupled with a belligerent knight, was too much for Lenderman to handle.
“The game got away from me quickly somehow,” a flummoxed Lenderman said. “There were so many choices for white, but I couldn't find a way to make the maximum of all my pieces. I was trying to calculate lines before outlining strategic possibilities.” In a moment of extreme candor from the 22-year-old, he added, “The position was just too complicated for me. Chess understanding is just not there for me. Good thing I am playing in this tournament. I keep trying to make 'professor' moves where I try to do too much. I keep making this mistake against 2700s.”
Kamsky and Nakamura both have 6/8 and will play each other on Friday. Should there be a winner, he will be the betting favorite to win the title.
Chasing the two leaders is a trio of grandmasters. GMs Alex Onischuk, Varuzhan Akobian and Yury Shulman all have 4.5/8. Taken together, the top five men comprise the U.S. Olympiad team from 2008, the last time the squad won a team medal.
Akobian won the only other decisive game of the day, besting GM Alejandro Ramirez in a wild game. “It was an unusual position,” Akobian said. Ramirez pushed ...c5, ...b5, ...f5 and ...g5 all in the first 11 moves. He left his center pawns at home while traversing his queen from one rook file to the other. “I was a little too optimistic,” Ramirez replied. “I wanted to play something interesting, but it backfired.”
Akobian said he spent 20 minutes in the opening calculating the unusual tactic 8. b4. If 8...axb3 e.p., the queen hangs. If 8...Qxb4, 9. Rb1 skewers the queen to the bishop. But if 8...cxb4 the pawn blocks the diagonal pin so 9. Nxe4 is possible. A possible variation is 9...b3+ 10. Ned2 b2 11. Ra2 a3 12. e4 Na6 (heading to b4) 13. Bxa6 Bxa6. Upon seeing this position, both players liked their position. Ramirez thought the b2-pawn and white's inability to castle offset his material loss. Ultimately, Akobian said he could not accurately evaluate the position, and headed for calmer waters with 8. c3.
GM Gregory Kaidanov played his second queen versus three minor piece game, this time departing with the monarch to try his hand with the knights and bishops. Earlier in the tournament, GM Robert Hess trapped Kaidanov's queen on the back rank. This time the queen had more space, but with no major weaknesses for either side, Kaidanov and his former student, GM Ray Robson, agreed to a draw.
In the women's side of the playing hall, IMs Zatonskih and Krush renewed their annual rivalry in round 7. Though a great majority of the their previous contests had produced a winner, Krush had little incentive to go for an unbalanced game. Playing Black, Krush liquidated the position's energy and the ladies agreed to a lifeless draw. They both still lead with 5/7.
Zatonskih regretted the move 12. Bf4, which allowed Krush to centralize with 12...Nd5 and win a tempo. “It is just fantastic how I played this,” Zatonskih said, chastising herself. She was using the literal connotation of “fantastic,” expressing that the move was unexplainable and bad. Afterward, she thought for 40 minutes.
Krush said a plan with b4 would have created a few problems for her, but ultimately she was never worried. “I just tried to play solid today,” she said. Although her pairings for the final two rounds are significantly easier than Zatonskih's, Krush said, “The tournament is not over. There's no reason to be joyous.”
The players shared a funny possible drawing line. If 15...a6 16. Nbc3 Nd4 17. Rc1 Nb3 18. Rc2 Nd4 19. Rd2 Nb3 20. Rd3 Nc1 and the rook either returns or goes wandering aimlessly.
IM Rusudan Goletiani took sole possession of third place after her win against WGM Tatev Abrahamyan. With a pawn deficit and short on time, Goletiani threw all of her pawns at her opponent's castled king, breaking through for the point. While she does not control her own destiny, Goletiani faces Zatonskih tomorrow as white in a game both women will be trying to win to stay alive for first place. If Zatonskih wins, Goletiani will be mathematically eliminated from title contention.
WGM Sabina Foisor was the only other winner of the round. She used the Samisch Variation to beat FM Alisa Melekhina's favorite King's Indian Defense. With king's castled on opposite sides, Melekhina could not open an attack, and eventually ceded control of the only open file. Foisor's rook took control and dominated in the endgame. Foisor is in sole fourth place with 4/7.
In other action today:
Round nine for the U.S. Championship and round eight for the U.S. Women's Championship will begin tomorrow at 1 p.m. Central, 2 p.m. Eastern. Come visit the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis or tune in to www.uschesschamps.org for live commentary from WGM Jennifer Shahade and the club's GM-in-Residence Ben Finegold.
By FM Mike Klein
Dramatic finishes punctuated an unpredictable day at the 2012 U.S. Championship and U.S. Women's Championship. When the final pawn was captured, a 101-move game ended in king versus king. In both events a pair of trailing players caught up to the leaders.
IM Anna Zatonskih got the better of WIM Iryna Zenyuk in a bishop-and-pawn endgame. With weaknesses on both sides of the board, Zatonskih had no trouble infiltrating and clearing a path for her pawns.
Entering the day behind by one-half point, the win nearly gave Zatonskih sole possession of the lead, as tournament leader IM Irina Krush got all she could handle from IM Rusudan Goletiani. In an atypical affair where Krush's king voluntarily moved to f1 and Goletiani's knights occupied f8 and h8, both players thought they were better. “Once the knights come out, my advantage is not permanent,” Krush said. Krush was caught off guard by the sacrifice 35...Nxf3. Afterward, she expected the immediate material equalization 36...e4, but instead the initiative-minded Goletiani preferred to step up the pressure by making a battery on the f-file. Krush survived the onslaught largely by ignoring it. Her counterattack was just enough to force a repetition of position.
The top two rated women will face off tomorrow. In what has become their usual yearly battle, they enter the game tied for first with 4.5/6. Neither woman has lost a game. “Good thing I didn't ruin everything today,” Krush said. “It was sharp; anything could have happened.”
The story repeated in the U.S. Championship, where tournament front-runner GM Hikaru Nakamura tried everything he could but could only draw against GM Yury Shulman. This allowed defending champion GM Gata Kamsky to catch up, as he was able to overcome the blockade of GM Alex Stripunsky.
Nakamura and Shulman played the longest game of the tournament. After five and a half hours and 101 moves, they were down to just their kings. After fruitlessly trying for more than 60 moves to win with an extra kingside pawn, Nakamura looked across the room for much of the final moves, seemingly chastising himself for missed opportunities. Shulman guessed that he was unhappy the minor pieces were allowed to be traded after 77...Be6+. Thanks to the zwischenzug 78...Re5+, Shulman entered an easily drawing rook-and-pawn endgame. Still, he insisted that the ending is drawn even without the “petite combinaison.” Nakamura has still never defeated Shulman in a tournament game.
Shulman's staunch defense, coupled with the tenacity of Kamsky to find a way to clear the path for his hanging pawns, means Nakamura and Kamsky are now equal first with 5/7. They will not meet until Friday's penultimate round ten.
Stripunsky and Kamsky had drawn many previous games, but today Kamsky won for the first time ever in classical chess, though he had won a rapid game in 2006. After a lot of circular movement, Kamsky made the time control and got his c- and d-pawns moving. In the final position, he had promoted a second queen, with one more on the way.
The most entertaining game of the day was unequivocally GM Alejandro Ramirez against GM Gregory Kaidanov. After a stunning victory, Ramirez was still trying to collect himself and figure out what happened. “This game was crazy,” he said. With arrows and variations strewn haphazardly all over the computer screen in the commentary room, Ramirez offered what he knew about the game, and what he was still sorting out. “I was just trying to get to the time control alive,” he said. “This was psychologically very difficult for me because I went from winning to really struggling. We had like two minutes left. We didn't know what we were doing.”
With both kings in danger, the underdeveloped Kaidanov found the subtle defense of retreating his one developed piece on move 32. “...Rg8! Wow! That was quite a move,” Ramirez said. The point was that the rook on a8 cannot be captured due to 33...Qe3+ 34. Kh1 (34. Rf2 Rf8) 34...Qg3 35. Rg1 (35. Bh3 Rxa8) 35...Qxh4#. In all variations, the wandering white queen is suddenly out of bounds. But after the time scramble resourcefulness, Kaidanov placed his king on the light square e4 and fell victim to an advancing a-pawn. Scrambling to get his rook back again, this time he was met with a skewer on the long diagonal. Ramirez was shocked at the turn of events, which saw him go from groveling for a draw to simply winning. After starting with two wins and two draws and sharing the early lead, Kaidanov has lost his last three.
Chasing Kamsky and Nakamura with 4/7 are Shulman and GMs Alex Lenderman and Alex Onischuk, who also drew today. Onischuk received one of the biggest surprises of the tournament when his former student, GM Ray Robson, uncorked the implausible Belgrade Gambit. Onischuk played the only move he knew against it, 5...Be7. He admitted that his theoretical knowledge ended there, as his position was super solid. “The position was equal all the time, but he still tried to torture me,” Onischuk said. Asked if he would now learn more about the opening, he continued, “If I play against some 2300-player, I'll have to come up with something else.”
Lenderman kept his unbeaten streak alive by holding the draw in mixed battle against GM Yasser Seirawan. “It was one of the strangest games I ever played,” Lenderman said. “It was unclear all the time. I thought I was better with initiative or attack, but after a turn of events, I was in a precarious endgame. But then without an obvious mistake from him, I was playing for a win.” Seirawan guessed that he should have made better use of his kingside pawn phalanx. After losing his first three games, Seirawan, a four-time champion, has now won 2.5 out of his last four.
GM Varuzhan Akobian again jettisoned his favorite French Defense but used the Caro-Kann to eventually win a knight-and-pawn ending against GM Robert Hess.
FM Alisa Melekhina won her second game in a row to earn a plus score. She sits on 3.5/6 after winning against the luckless WGM Camilla Baginskaite. Melekhina already has more than twice the number of points she earned in seven rounds last year. “I didn't expect Alisa to play so aggressively with such theoretical stuff,” Baginskaite said afterward. Melekhina repeated her Moscow System that she previously used against Krush, but this time she offered her two center pawns to open the game quickly. “I'm not sure it's objectively the best thing to do, but practically it is,” Melekhina said of her bellicosity. The fork 24. Qf3 pressured her opponent sufficiently to make a catastrophic error, dropping a knight. “I didn't want to get so hopeful because the other day against Alena Kats I was up the exchange and four pawns and she fought back so hard.”
In other women's games, WGM Tatev Abrahamyan bravely walked her king up the board in beating WGM Sabina Foisor.
WIM Viktorija Ni got back to an even score by using her extra rook to eventually overpower WFM Alena Kats's bishop.
Round eight for the U.S. Championship and round seven for the U.S. Women's Championship will begin tomorrow at 1 p.m. Central, 2 p.m. Eastern. Come visit the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis or tune in to www.uschesschamps.org for live commentary from WGM Jennifer Shahade and the club's GM-in-Residence Ben Finegold.
By FM Mike Klein
Dramatic finishes punctuated an unpredictable day at the 2012 U.S. Championship and U.S. Women's Championship. When the final pawn was captured, a 101-move game ended in king versus king. In both events a pair of trailing players caught up to the leaders.
IM Anna Zatonskih got the better of WIM Iryna Zenyuk in a bishop-and-pawn endgame. With weaknesses on both sides of the board, Zatonskih had no trouble infiltrating and clearing a path for her pawns.
Entering the day behind by one-half point, the win nearly gave Zatonskih sole possession of the lead, as tournament leader IM Irina Krush got all she could handle from IM Rusudan Goletiani. In an atypical affair where Krush's king voluntarily moved to f1 and Goletiani's knights occupied f8 and h8, both players thought they were better. “Once the knights come out, my advantage is not permanent,” Krush said. Krush was caught off guard by the sacrifice 35...Nxf3. Afterward, she expected the immediate material equalization 36...e4, but instead the initiative-minded Goletiani preferred to step up the pressure by making a battery on the f-file. Krush survived the onslaught largely by ignoring it. Her counterattack was just enough to force a repetition of position.
The top two rated women will face off tomorrow. In what has become their usual yearly battle, they enter the game tied for first with 4.5/6. Neither woman has lost a game. “Good thing I didn't ruin everything today,” Krush said. “It was sharp; anything could have happened.”
The story repeated in the U.S. Championship, where tournament front-runner GM Hikaru Nakamura tried everything he could but could only draw against GM Yury Shulman. This allowed defending champion GM Gata Kamsky to catch up, as he was able to overcome the blockade of GM Alex Stripunsky.
Nakamura and Shulman played the longest game of the tournament. After five and a half hours and 101 moves, they were down to just their kings. After fruitlessly trying for more than 60 moves to win with an extra kingside pawn, Nakamura looked across the room for much of the final moves, seemingly chastising himself for missed opportunities. Shulman guessed that he was unhappy the minor pieces were allowed to be traded after 77...Be6+. Thanks to the zwischenzug 78...Re5+, Shulman entered an easily drawing rook-and-pawn endgame. Still, he insisted that the ending is drawn even without the “petite combinaison.” Nakamura has still never defeated Shulman in a tournament game.
Shulman's staunch defense, coupled with the tenacity of Kamsky to find a way to clear the path for his hanging pawns, means Nakamura and Kamsky are now equal first with 5/7. They will not meet until Friday's penultimate round ten.
Stripunsky and Kamsky had drawn many previous games, but today Kamsky won for the first time ever in classical chess, though he had won a rapid game in 2006. After a lot of circular movement, Kamsky made the time control and got his c- and d-pawns moving. In the final position, he had promoted a second queen, with one more on the way.
The most entertaining game of the day was unequivocally GM Alejandro Ramirez against GM Gregory Kaidanov. After a stunning victory, Ramirez was still trying to collect himself and figure out what happened. “This game was crazy,” he said. With arrows and variations strewn haphazardly all over the computer screen in the commentary room, Ramirez offered what he knew about the game, and what he was still sorting out. “I was just trying to get to the time control alive,” he said. “This was psychologically very difficult for me because I went from winning to really struggling. We had like two minutes left. We didn't know what we were doing.”
With both kings in danger, the underdeveloped Kaidanov found the subtle defense of retreating his one developed piece on move 32. “...Rg8! Wow! That was quite a move,” Ramirez said. The point was that the rook on a8 cannot be captured due to 33...Qe3+ 34. Kh1 (34. Rf2 Rf8) 34...Qg3 35. Rg1 (35. Bh3 Rxa8) 35...Qxh4#. In all variations, the wandering white queen is suddenly out of bounds. But after the time scramble resourcefulness, Kaidanov placed his king on the light square e4 and fell victim to an advancing a-pawn. Scrambling to get his rook back again, this time he was met with a skewer on the long diagonal. Ramirez was shocked at the turn of events, which saw him go from groveling for a draw to simply winning. After starting with two wins and two draws and sharing the early lead, Kaidanov has lost his last three.
Chasing Kamsky and Nakamura with 4/7 are Shulman and GMs Alex Lenderman and Alex Onischuk, who also drew today. Onischuk received one of the biggest surprises of the tournament when his former student, GM Ray Robson, uncorked the implausible Belgrade Gambit. Onischuk played the only move he knew against it, 5...Be7. He admitted that his theoretical knowledge ended there, as his position was super solid. “The position was equal all the time, but he still tried to torture me,” Onischuk said. Asked if he would now learn more about the opening, he continued, “If I play against some 2300-player, I'll have to come up with something else.”
Lenderman kept his unbeaten streak alive by holding the draw in mixed battle against GM Yasser Seirawan. “It was one of the strangest games I ever played,” Lenderman said. “It was unclear all the time. I thought I was better with initiative or attack, but after a turn of events, I was in a precarious endgame. But then without an obvious mistake from him, I was playing for a win.” Seirawan guessed that he should have made better use of his kingside pawn phalanx. After losing his first three games, Seirawan, a four-time champion, has now won 2.5 out of his last four.
GM Varuzhan Akobian again jettisoned his favorite French Defense but used the Caro-Kann to eventually win a knight-and-pawn ending against GM Robert Hess.
FM Alisa Melekhina won her second game in a row to earn a plus score. She sits on 3.5/6 after winning against the luckless WGM Camilla Baginskaite. Melekhina already has more than twice the number of points she earned in seven rounds last year. “I didn't expect Alisa to play so aggressively with such theoretical stuff,” Baginskaite said afterward. Melekhina repeated her Moscow System that she previously used against Krush, but this time she offered her two center pawns to open the game quickly. “I'm not sure it's objectively the best thing to do, but practically it is,” Melekhina said of her bellicosity. The fork 24. Qf3 pressured her opponent sufficiently to make a catastrophic error, dropping a knight. “I didn't want to get so hopeful because the other day against Alena Kats I was up the exchange and four pawns and she fought back so hard.”
In other women's games, WGM Tatev Abrahamyan bravely walked her king up the board in beating WGM Sabina Foisor.
WIM Viktorija Ni got back to an even score by using her extra rook to eventually overpower WFM Alena Kats's bishop.
Round eight for the U.S. Championship and round seven for the U.S. Women's Championship will begin tomorrow at 1 p.m. Central, 2 p.m. Eastern. Come visit the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis or tune in to www.uschesschamps.org for live commentary from WGM Jennifer Shahade and the club's GM-in-Residence Ben Finegold.
By FM Mike Klein
SAINT LOUIS, May 13, 2012 -- Round six of the U.S. Championships maintained the stasis – the top three rated players still sit one, two, three with a couple of other solid players lurking. In the U.S. Women's Championship, a familiar face grabbed sole possession of the lead.
GM Hikaru Nakamura traded his light-squared bishop early, but compensated by forming a wedge of center pawns to blunt GM Varuzhan Akobian's king's bishop. Opening the position for the bishop pair meant Akobian had to give back the bishop, and the resulting endgame had too symmetrical of a pawn structure to produce any winning chances. The draw continued Nakamura's pattern so far, as he has alternated winning and drawing through the first six games (he has won all three times as white and drawn all three as black).
Nakamura said he was satisfied with the result. He called the ailment that began last round “just a temporary thing ... I feel fine today. I'm still a little bit sick.” He felt well enough to joke, “I'm on drugs, so everything is OK.” Nakamura has tried to win all of his games, even as black, and said he should have one more point than he does now, as he was better in rounds two and four. Though his live rating is at an all-time high and cresting 2780, Nakamura dismissed the idea that those thoughts entered into his decision making. “I had to trade queens,” he said. “If I don't, it is really dangerous. The rating will come. If I was focusing on rating, I probably would've done something suicidal.”
GM Gata Kamsky began the day one-half point back, but never entertained any winning prospects against longtime U.S. Championship nemesis GM Yury Shulman. The two have played in the finals in each of the past two events. Shulman won a pawn, but as the game gradually lost its life, he did not obtain a winning rook-and-pawn endgame. “The position I reached in the game, I don't have any chances,” Shulman said. Kamsky agreed with Nakamura's estimation that the winner of the tournament would need eight points. Nakamura currently has 4.5/6 and Kamsky 4/6.
Besides Nakamura, the only other competitors that have yet to lose a game remain Shulman and GM Alex Lenderman. Along with GM Alex Onischuk, the trio sit in a tie for third with 3.5/6. Lenderman nearly equaled Kamsky's score as his Caro-Kann netted him an advantageous knight against a mostly impotent bishop, but the resurgent GM Alex Stripunsky held the balance.
Crowd-favorite GM Gregory Kaidanov fell back to an even score with his second loss in a row. “After two long games against Gata and Hikaru, I felt very tired today,” he said about his loss against GM Robert Hess. Kaidanov was surprised by Hess's opening choice, and forced into a deviation due to a curious incident. After nine moves, his game was exactly like Onischuk's battle with GM Alejandro Ramirez. Onischuk played 10. e4, and Kaidanov felt forced to play a different line. “It would look like we are just copying each other's games,” he explained. “We try to prevent cheating in many different kinds of ways, but we can't prevent that.” He said copying another player's moves willfully is “kind of like cheating” and while not expressly prohibited, the veteran decided he needed to play a new variation. Hess found a way to trade his queen for three of Kaidanov's active minor pieces, then unearthed a nifty queen trap based on various forks and discovered attacks.
In other round six action, GM Yasser Seirawan defeated GM Ray Robson to get to 2/6.
The logjam in the U.S. Women's Championship is no longer, thanks to the efforts of IM Irina Krush, who bested WGM Tatev Abrahamyan today. Krush played the g3 system versus her opponent's King's Indian Defense. “It's hard to prepare for it if I've never played it before,” Krush said of her opening choice. Indeed, at the post-game press conference, a despondent Abrahamyan said she did not expect the treatment at all. The win moved Krush to 4/5 and sole possession of first.
The two competitors who began the day tied with her could not keep pace. IM Anna Zatonskih could only draw WIM Viktorija Ni in a melee, while overperforming WIM Iryna Zenyuk suffered her first setback at the hands of IM Rusudan Goletiani. Zatonskih is now at 3.5/5 while Zenyuk remains at 3/5, tied with Goletiani, who has five decisive results in all five games.
WGM Camilla Baginskaite got on the board with her first draw, while FM Alisa Melekhina earned her first win and an even score with the cunning simplification beginning with 51...Rxf5. Despite her overwhelming position and material advantage, IM Marc Arnold said this was the only way to convert the full point. Her opponent, WFM Alena Kats had no choice but to enter a losing king-and-pawn endgame, so she resigned.
The players from both events will enjoy a rest day on Monday. Round seven for the U.S. Championship and round six for the U.S. Women's Championship begins Tuesday, May 15, at 1 p.m. Central, 2 p.m. Eastern. Tune in to www.uschesschamps.com for live commentary from WGM Jennifer Shahade and GM Ben Finegold.