U.S. Championship, Round 5: So Joins Caruana in First
Round 5 was another bloodthirsty day, with four decisive games out of six - and it should have been five out of six.
Wesley So won with great ease against Varuzhan Akobian on the white side of a Rubinstein French. Black played too passively, and while his position was already unpleasant Akobian's 15...Bc6 followed by 16...Bd5 and 17...Bxg2 was suicidal. The finish was brutal: So sacrificed a knight and a rook to obtain an attack that would lead to mate or a full extra queen, so Akobian resigned on his 24th move.
If Fabiano Caruana had won with Black against Alexander Shabalov, he would have maintained his half-point lead over So. Shabalov hasn't had a good tournament so far, but he stayed solid in this game and kept out of trouble, achieving a draw. The day's other draw was also important for the leading standings. Ray Robson had the white pieces against Aleks Lenderman, and a win would have put him in a three-way tie for first. He should have won, too, but somehow Lenderman managed to save the game. Robson's error in the knight-up endgame was that he was unwilling to let his king do the defensive work against White's a-pawn, believing that Black's king would draw in that case by going after White's kingside pawns. This appears to be inaccurate, while the strategy chosen in the game proved inadequate for victory.
Robson is in clear third, half a point ahead of the day's other winners (in addition to So, that is): Hikaru Nakamura, Jeffery Xiong, and Alexander Onischuk. Nakamura bounced back nicely from yesterday's loss to Caruana, defeating Sam Shankland on the white side of a Two Knights Caro-Kann that morphed into something that resembled a Classical French. Nakamura went for a kingside attack with f4-f5, and while he didn't deliver mate he won material along the way and finally trapped Shankland's knight.
Xiong defeated an out of form Gata Kamsky after the latter blundered. The game had been mostly balanced, with Kamsky having the better chances at times. The decisive moment came when Kamsky played 35...Bxf3?? after thinking for three minutes - more than enough time for even a club player to spot the problem. But everyone has their bad days, and Kamsky somehow failed to see the refutation of his line: 38.Qb2+. (It's possible that he missed that White could subsequently prevent Black from queening, after taking on d8, by playing Qc1 and Re8, but my suspicion is that he missed 38.Qb2+, which is where he resigned.)
Finally, Onischuk defeated Akshat Chandra fairly easily when the latter tried a provocative line against White's 4.Qc2 in the Nimzo-Indian. After the sad undeveloping move 17...Bc8 Chandra was lost, and Onischuk ground out the point without too much trouble.
Tuesday is a rest day, and on Wednesday comes round 6, with the following pairings:
- Akobian (1) - Lenderman (1.5)
- Kamsky (1.5) - Robson (3.5)
- Chandra (1) - Xiong (3)
- Caruana (4) - Onischuk (3)
- Shankland (2.5) - Shabalov (2)
- So (4) - Nakamura (3)
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