Shakeup and Separation in Standings After Eight Rounds of U.S. Championships

Round eight brought another round of exciting chess in the 2023 U.S. Championships. We can safely say that it was a round with some of the most topsy-turvy results for the standings.

courtesy SLCC / Spectrum Studios

courtesy SLCC / Spectrum Studios

The past two rounds in the Open were hard fought, though the results didn’t show that considering that all the games ended in a draw. However, today some unexpected results happened, shaking up the top of the leaderboard.

A tough round for Niemann, allowing So (back) to join a pack of players tied with him in second place (courtesy Lennart Ootes/SLCC)

Despite not being able to convert against GM Sam Shankland with the white pieces, GM Fabiano Caruana now stands a full point ahead of his nearest competitors.

In large part, this is due to GM Hans Niemann — who previously trailed Caruana by only a half-point — losing unexpectedly after misplacing his queen and allowing Ray Robson to trap it. Niemann resigned immediately.

GMs Abhimanyu Mishra and Sam Sevian played a long game. Mishra took advantage of some inaccuracies by Sevian to convert a bishop-versus-knight endgame with an extra pawn.

The 2023 U.S. Junior champion joins the group of players chasing Caruana (courtesy Austin Fuller/SLCC)

This allowed Mishra to join Niemann in a four-way tie for second, and also to achieve his highest live rating to date.

Caruana seemed to have outplayed Shankland as he was able to build an unpleasant king-side attack. In order to defend, Sam had to give up his queen.

Shankland's defensive resilience was on full display against Caruana (courtesy Austin Fuller/SLCC)

But the position wasn’t easy and Fabi failed to find a way to utilize the extra material. Shankland found some activity and Caruana had to repeat the position.

The rest of the players drew their games, but with the two decisive results things changed a bit in the standings. While Caruana maintained the lead, with Niemann’s tough defeat he was caught up by GMs Leinier Dominguez and Wesley So, along with Mishra. Caruana goes into the rest day with 5½/8, a full point ahead of the trailing pack.

In the Women’s championship, it has been a two-player race for much of the past week. Today could very well have been the end of the winning streak for one of them, but in the end both IM Carissa Yip and WGM Gulrukhbegim Tokhirjonova won, meaning they each went an impressive 4–0 following last Monday’s rest day.

“Begim,” as she is known, won convincingly over IM Anna Zatonskih, and for a long time it seemed that she would remain the sole leader.

Despite being lost for most of a truly wild game, Yip had a miraculous escape and was able to win and maintain the lead with Tokhirjonova. (Editor's note: see our author's to-the-minute post-game reporting in action here.)

Pourkashiyan convincingly led the way through a complicated battle with Yip until the final moments (courtesy Austin Fuller/SLCC)

With three rounds to go, Yip and Tokhirjonova are both sitting on a spectacular 7/8 score. Their closest competitors are GM Irina Krush and FM Alice Lee, who are tied for third with 5/8.

Happy belated birthday to now-14-year-old Alice Lee (courtesy Austin Fuller/SLCC)

Lee turned 14 yesterday and seemed to have played a bit more nervous than usual. But despite the rocky start to her tournament, she won four games in a row beginning with her fourth game.

Her winning streak finished with today’s draw. She had some chances to continue to press on her opponent, but she ended up trading pieces instead and the game petered out to a draw. It is interesting to notice that FM Ruiyang Yan has drawn all her games so far. As a side note, prior to the start of the competition she did mention to me that her goal was 50% and I would say she’s definitely keeping it up!

Krush was pressing on the defending Champion Jennifer Yu, but then blundered into a very unpleasant position. Jennifer took advantage of the blunder, and found a nice bishop-and-rook sacrifice to weaken Irina’s king.

The "rematch" of last year's playoff lived up to the hype (courtesy Austin Fuller/SLCC)

Unfortunately for her, she failed to find the winning continuation. To be fair, myself having the computer in front of me, I am not sure how I would have continued.

FM Ashritha Eswaran has won her first game in the event and she hopes the free day will give her extra motivation to finish on a positive note. She inflicted a loss to WGM Thalia Cervantes, who seems to keep getting good positions but luck wasn’t on her side.

WGM Tatev Abrahamyan was pressing against IM Nazi Paikidze, but unfortunately for her trading towards a queen endgame allowed Paikidze to retain sufficient counterplay to force a repetition.

Today is the second and final day off at the 2023 U.S. Championship and U.S. Women’s Championship and it is also National Chess Day! I hope you have fun playing chess. Stay tuned for the final three rounds.

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