The St. Louis Chess Club is sponsoring a pair of concurrent matches featuring their resident stars Hikaru Nakamura and Ben Finegold taking on outstanding opponents. In Nakamura's case, it's 2002 FIDE Champion Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukraine, while Finegold is facing 16-year-old American GM Ray Robson, who was a late substitute for Viktor Korchnoi.
I was there for the first game (and even participated in the live video commentary for 15-20 minutes during the second hour with Jenn Shahade and John Donaldson), but I'm not going to take any responsibility for jinxing the locals, who both lost. Ponomariov-Nakamura was a King's Indian, and "Pono" did what few of Nakamura's previous opponents could do: make progress on the queenside without allowing Black a whiz-bang smash-'em-up attack on the kingside. Ponomariov seemed to be better even before 21...Nf6, but there's no question about the situation afterwards - the move was an error, and after 22.Nxd4 exd4 23.e5 White was probably winning. It took a long time to convert, though, as the game went 70 more moves, with Nakamura only throwing in the towel when mate was imminent in the king + bishop + knight vs. king ending.
Finegold-Robson also saw the loser suffer a long time before the metaphorical axe finally fell. Finegold played the 2.c3 Sicilian, and chose the little-known 12.cxd4 (12.Qxd4 is well-known and deeply worked out). As a long-term approach, it doesn't look very good for White, but Finegold hoped that Black's difficulties in unraveling on the kingside would give him some chances. Maybe there are some improvements to be found, but by move 21 (if not sooner) it seems clear that White's approach had failed. After 21.a3 White has no attack, but plenty to worry about - he has gaps on the light squares on the queenside and his isolated d-pawn is a passive target, while Black's powerfully centralized queen and control of the c-file give him a large and persistent advantage. Maybe with computer-like defense White can hold such a position (though I doubt it), but for humans it's practically impossible against a player with strong technique. Robson was up to the task, and finished the game with a mating attack.
Fortunately for Nakamura and Finegold, these aren't Candidates' matches, and they'll have a bit more time to fight their way back. More info on the Club site, here.
On another note, I'd like to say that the club is really beautiful. It's large (three stories), bright, elegantly furnished, very well-maintained and in a nice area as well. One can only hope that the club thrives for many years to come, and becomes a model for similar clubs elsewhere.