2018 U.S. Championship, Round 4: Three Leaders - But Not the Same Three
It was a strange day at the U.S. Championship - or at least it was a day with one extremely strange game. Entering the round there were three co-leaders: Wesley So, Varuzhan Akobian, and Fabiano Caruana - all of whom had White in this round. And there were three co-leaders at the end of the day, too, but the identity of one of the leaders had changed.
So had some advantage against Aleksandr Lenderman, but although he managed to win a pawn it wasn't enough to win the game. Varuzhan Akobian likewise managed to win a pawn in his game, against Jeffery Xiong, but once again it wasn't enough to collect the full point. He came closer than So did, and maybe would have managed a win had he played 33.Qc8 Qd5 34.Qe8+.
Fabiano Caruana played as if he had a death wish against Zviad Izoria. If this had been the last round and he were in a must-win situation his play would be explicable, but not in an early round where a draw, though not ideal against a lower seed, isn't a real problem. Caruana was better early on, but by move 20 or so the position was equal. Izoria was happy to repeat (see his 31st and 32nd moves, and then his 34th, 35th, and 36th moves), but Caruana played on with no justification except for his higher rating. He was even in a bit of trouble after that, but managed to wriggle his way out of it.
But once again, Caruana was bound and determined to avoid a draw, and he succeeded. Playing for tricks, he went for the dubious 67.c4, apparently counting on 67...Nxg2 68.Kd5 Rc8 69.Nb6? to pick up Black's d-pawn and give him some minuscule winning chances. But Black played the obvious 69...Ne3+, and after 70.Ke6? (70.Ke4!) gave Caruana one last chance to save the game. 70...Rh8 won, but the trappy 70...Rc6? allowed several drawing moves. Caruana's 71.Kd7? wasn't one of them, and he fell headlong into the trap. After the neat 71...Nxc4! Caruana was caught. Maybe 72.Nd5 offered some hope, but after 72.Kxc6? Na5+ 73.Kxd6 Nxb7+ the battle was decided: White would not be able to stop Black's h-pawn.
Meanwhile, Sam Shankland won a good game with Black against Ray Robson in an Open Ruy, and caught up to the leaders on +2.
As for Hikaru Nakamura, he drew again, despite having White in three games out of four. This time it was against Awonder Liang, who was entirely ready for the King's Indian Attack. If anything, Liang had the better chances, and Nakamura had to earn the draw that was agreed on move 32.
Here are the pairings for round 5:
- Onischuk (1) - Robson (1.5)
- Liang (1.5) - Zherebukh (2)
- Lenderman (1.5) - Nakamura (2)
- Xiong (1.5) - So (3)
- Izoria (1.5) - Akobian (3)
- Shankland (3) - Caruana (2.5)
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