Recaps

The 2020 U.S. Championship kicked off today with twelve of America’s strongest players competing over the course of eleven rounds for a total prize fund of $150,000. After the first day of action, GM Wesley So leads with a perfect 3/3 while GM Jeffery Xiong and GM Ray Robson are tied for second with 2.5/3. Top contenders GM Hikaru Nakamura and GM Lenier Dominguez had a slow start, being held to just 1.5/3 and 1.0/3 in the tough championship field.

It was a volatile day at the top of the standings as GM Irina Krush first lost the lead before regaining it during a dramatic third day at the 2020 U.S. Women’s Championship. Things were looking good for the recent U.S. Girls’ Junior Champion, WGM Carissa Yip, who grabbed the lead after winning her first two games of the day, but a critical Round 9 loss to WIM Ashritha Eswaran left Carissa in a tie for second with IM Dorsa Derakhshani.

IM Annie Wang grabbed the early lead in the 2020 U.S. Women’s Championship, scoring 2.5/3 points on the first day of play. Defending champion WGM Jennifer Yu earned 2.0/3, tied for second with top seed GM Irina Krush, WGM Tatev Abrahamyan, and WIM Emily Nguyen, with eight more rounds to go in this 12-player round-robin event. 

Despite starting off with a loss in the first game of the second day, GM Joel Benjamin managed to bounce back with two straight wins to take the sole lead with 4.5/6 going into the final day tomorrow. Trailing Benjamin by half a point is the previous co-leader GM Igor Novikov, who drew all three games today; while GM Gregory Kaidanov, GM Patrick Wolff, and GM Dmitry Gurevich are still within range with an even score after six rounds.