Nakamura clinches his 5th US Championship Title!

By GM Cristian Chirila

While the Women’s section was decided in round 10, the U.S. Chess Championship was open to a wide array of outcomes going into the final day. All the ingredients for one of the most exciting rounds of the year were there: three of the top five were tied at the top of the standings, one of them was looking like a clear favorite to win it, and this was the championship round – anything could happen!

 U.S. Women’s Chess Championship

While the focus was on the open section, some ladies were still fighting for the remaining medals. Abrahamyan was trailing Zatonskih by half a point. Abrahamyan drew her game, and fortunately for her Zatonksih was unable to find herself against the former champion, Foisor. GM Boros provides analysis for the game that decided the final standings.

U.S. Chess Championship

The Setup

Dominguez has been on a stellar run and proved to everybody that there is no such thing as board rust. He hasn’t played a classical game in two years, yet he showed that class is never lost, as he won game after game and converted his advantages with surgical precision time and time again. Today, he was facing the lowest rated player of the event, Timur Gareyev, who is as unpredictable as they come. Another important factor was that he was playing with the White pieces.

This is the perfect position to be in a must win situation. Dominguez knew the scale of this opportunity, the fans knew it, and most importantly his co-leaders knew it!

Nakamura was surely the one with the second chance, as he was facing Jeffery Xiong who seemed to have had lost some steam throughout the event. While he was the rating favorite, it was clear that the biggest factor in this matchup was the color he was playing with. Nakamura had the Black pieces and mentioned during his interview after round 10 that he believed there was an 80% chance Dominguez would win his game. He approached his game against Jeffery as a must win situation, a decision that would later prove to be decisive.

The last man to join the leaders pack, Fabiano Caruana, had the most difficult pairing. Despite being the highest rated player in the mix, he was also facing the strongest opposition in Sam Shankland, the 2018 champion. But the most important factor was that he had the Black pieces, just like Nakamura. The one difference was that Shankland knew how to kill the game and make a draw. Unfortunately for Caruana, Shankland wasn’t going to look for a fight in this one.  

The Outcome

Caruana drew first after an uneventful game, and his fate was no longer in his hands. Dominguez and Nakamura fought tooth and nail until the last moments of the round, but, in the end,  there was only one man standing.

Dominguez outplayed Gareyev throughout the game and looked as if he would become the new champion. The championship newcomer had the win in his pocket if only he would have played 26.f5! instead of the safer but much weaker 26.fxe5?

This slippage allowed Black into the game. Gareyev found the only move 33…a3!! which forced an equal endgame. On the other side of the playing hall, Nakamura was pacing nervously, going back and forth from his game to Dominguez’s.

He knew that his victory was close; he just outplayed his young opponent in a complex battle stemming from the Dutch.

This is a game that will be analyzed by many, where Nakamura was simply the better player. The 2019 U.S. Chess Champion was crowned in the 6th hour of play, after a brilliant display of chess from the now 5 time champion. Dominguez and Caruana were close and had their fair share of chances.

Nakamura wanted it more and took the final victory to win his fifth U.S. Chess Championship title!