It was another strange day at the U.S. Championships. The main event is led by the two favorites, Hikaru Nakamura and Wesley So, and both are 2-0. Nakamura won pretty cleanly against Varuzhan Akobian, and while he played it down in the postgame interview I think the rest of us find it noteworthy that he is now #2 on the live rating list. Not bad at all! Also not bad is Wesley So's position at #5 on that same list. (If only Fabiano Caruana - now #3 - would also represent the U.S. What an Olympic team that would be!) However, while So won, the manner of his victory will leave him anything but satisfied. He was repeatedly winning against Sam Shankland, and repeatedly gave that advantage away. The game was a horror show, and it culminated in a bizarre blunder by Shankland on the final move, in a position where he was probably within sight of the draw. The less said about this game, the better, so let's move on to other action.
Ray Robson is alone in third place with 1.5/2 after a draw with Alexander Onischuk, and then five players have a point apiece, including Akobian and Onischuk. A third is Gata Kamsky, who drew a good fighting game with Sam Sevian. The fourth one-pointer is Conrad Holt, who bounced back from yesterday's loss to defeat Timur Gareev, and the fifth player with a 50% score is Kayden Troff, who won convincingly against Daniel Naroditsky.
In the women's section Irina Krush won pretty easily against Viktorija Ni, while Tatev Abrahamyan was crushed by Alisa Melekhina. The win of the round was Katerina Nemcova's attacking effort against Anna Sharevich, culminating in mate on move 29. Sharevich played very poorly, in my humble opinion, but sometimes that's not so much a matter of bad form as it is the result of playing an opponent who drags you into an unfamiliar and uncomfortable position. Either way, Nemcova played very well and won a pretty game. She is tied with Krush for first with 1.5/2, along with Apurva Vikud and Rusudan Goletiani.