2018 U.S. Championship: Shankland the Champion
Quite the surprise, but Sam Shankland definitely earned it! He scored +6, went undefeated, won four games with Black, won his last three games, gained 30 rating points, surpassed the 2700 barrier (becoming the 7th player from the U.S.A. to do so), and has reached #45 in the world. That's a great tournament! The only thing he didn't manage to do was beat one of the big three, though he came close to defeating both Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura. (Can you imagine if he had gone +8 in this field? That would have been Fischer-like - but to be fair Bobby Fischer never faced a U.S. Championship field like this one.)
And despite all this, he still finished only half a point ahead of Caruana. That was the gap separating the players before the round, and they both won to maintain their relative positions. Caruana defeated Alexander Onischuk pretty easily when Onischuk sacced one pawn without any obvious justification and then blundered a second one. By the time Onischuk resigned, however, Shankland had such an overwhelming advantage against Awonder Liang that there was no real drama. Indeed, within a minute or two, Liang resigned, leaving Shankland obviously and understandably elated.
I've annotated Shankland's and Caruana's last three games, plus Nakamura's attractive win against Varuzhan Akobian from round 10; they're all here. And here are the final standings:
- 1. Shankland 8.5/11 (TPR 2884)
- 2. Caruana 8
- 3. So 6.5
- 4-6. Nakamura, Lenderman, Robson 5.5
- 7-8. Izoria, Xiong 5
- 9-11. Liang, Zherebukh, Akobian 4.5
- 12. Onischuk 3
Reader Comments (5)
Somewhat random thought from ratings being mentioned, what’s the smallest rating difference for a world championship match? Carlsen and Caruana are pretty close.
[DM: In the first Karpov-Kasparov match, the difference was 10 points, while in Anand-Kramnik it was 11 points.]
Thanks as always for your great analysis!
Shankland surpassing the 2700 "..becoming the 7th player from the U.S.A. to do so."
Fischer, Kamsky, Nakamura, So, Caruana, Shankland. I can only remember 6.
Who is missing?
[DM: Onischuk.]
I had picked Nakamura, saying he would win more against the bottom of the field (rating wise.) However, it was Shankland that did just that. It is very nice to see Shankland win this despite Caruana giving a great performance. Shankland did not sneak in as the Big 3 finished 2, 3 and 4.
It is very exciting for USA chess to see we have an emerging group of young players, Shankland, Robson, and Xiong to replace the aging stars Kamsky, Onischuk and Akobian.
[DM: Kamsky and Onischuk are over 40 - they're not grandparents, but okay, as chess players they're a little old. But c'mon, Akobian is 34 - "aging"? Brutal.]
"[DM: Kamsky and Onischuk are over 40 - they're not grandparents, but okay, as chess players they're a little old. But c'mon, Akobian is 34 - "aging"? Brutal.]"
I am a great-grandfather so I am not seeing them as old men. However, the game is becoming brutal for most players over 30. Look at the results of those over 30. Kamsky (6th highest rated American Player) doesn't even play, while Akobian and Onischuk finish 11th and 12th. Only Izoria finished a respectable 7th and if you change the gift win that Caruana gave him, to a draw he ties for 8th-11th. Nakumura is 30, doesn't finish with a plus score and ties for 4th-7th.
You can correctly say the older players can still play good chess, but the younger players are playing great chess and that is why I made my previous observation.
I remember playing in the Southern New Jersey team championships back in the 1980's. One year the winning team did not have a player over 18. Brutal!
[DM: There's a much simpler explanation: Caruana, Nakamura, and So (in alphabetical order) are just much stronger than everyone else. All three have been well over 2700 for years, and all three have broken 2800 at different times. Aside from Kamsky, no one else in the U.S. has ever been over 2700, except Onischuk by a hair, very briefly, and now Shankland. There's no real reason to chalk things up to the players' ages when ratings will do the trick. Players like Anand, Ivanchuk, Gelfand, Shirov, Kramnik, Short and others remained at or very near their best even into their 40s, and 34 is still in one's peak years.]