U.S. Championships: A Pair of 3-Player Playoffs!
Today's U.S. Championship action ought to be lots of fun for the fans, as there will be two-stage playoffs in both the open and the women's tournaments.
When we left off the open (men's) event, Varuzhan Akobian and Alex Lenderman led with two rounds to go, half a point ahead of Gata Kamsky and Josh Friedel. In round 10 Sam Shankland served as a spoiler yet again, beating Friedel with Black to knock him out of contention, while the other three players maintained their relative positions. Akobian drew with White against Kamsky's Dutch, while Lenderman drew in a Tarrasch French against Mackenzie Molner.
In round 11 there was another head-to-head, this time between the two leaders. Lenderman had White against Akobian, a hard-fought battle that wound up in a drawn rook ending. Meanwhile, Gata Kamsky, who had been chasing the leaders all tournament long, finally caught up with a long win over Friedel.
Happily for Kamsky, his tiebreak score is the best of the three, so Akobian and Lenderman will have a bid-Armageddon game to see who will advance to play a pair of G/25s with Kamsky. The bid idea works like this: White gets 45 minutes but must win, while the player who makes the lowest time bid will get that amount of time, the black pieces, and draw odds.
A similar story will take place in the Women's event. Both Irina Krush and Anna Zatonskih were in trouble against lower-rated opponents (Viktorija Ni and Katerina Nemcova, respectively) before escaping with draws. Meanwhile, Tatev Abrahamyan beat Camilla Baginskaite to catch them. Krush had the best tiebreaks, so Zatonskih and Abrahamyan will have the bid-Armageddon game for the right to face Krush in the G/25s.
The action begins at 2 p.m. ET.
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