First things first: Sigeman & Co. finished Wednesday, and Fabiano Caruana finished strongly with a second straight win to take clear first. He needed that win, as Peter Leko also won his last two, and scored 3.5 points in his final four games, to finish just half a point back. Caruana's final tally was 5.5/7, Leko's 5, and the next closest competitors had 4 points apiece.
Still ongoing is the U.S. Championship, which is a two-horse race between Gata Kamsky and Hikaru Nakamura. Kamsky is in beautiful form, and with three wins in a row has taken the lead with two rounds to go. In round 8 he ground down Alex Lenderman with Black in a Chebanenko Slav of sorts. It always looks terribly passive when he plays it, but he almost invariably finds a way to break out, and so he did on this occasion as well. Interestingly, Lenderman confessed after the game that at a certain moment "[t]he position was just too complicated for me". There's a reason Kamsky has achieved as much as he has in his career! Moving to round 9, Kamsky uncorked some strong anti-Caro-Kann preparation against Yasser Seirawan and defeated him pretty convincingly.
Nakamura, meanwhile, won a remarkable battle in round 8 with Alex Stripunsky. Most spectators, including GMs, thought that White - Stripunsky - stood better, but Kamsky opined otherwise, and was right. Rather than wait for Nakamura to keep improving his position until he would be defenseless, Stripunsky started sacrificing things: a piece, and exchange, and then later another exchange. There finally arose an ending where Stripunsky had five pawns - all passed, with two pairs of connected passers - against Nakamura's rook and two pawns. At first it seemed as if White was winning, but Nakamura had calculated everything perfectly and won. At that point he was still tied with Kamsky, but in round 8 he dropped half a point back. He tried and tried and tried to beat Lenderman, but while he made some progress late in the game he had to call it a day after 120(!) moves.
Kamsky has 7/9, Nakamura 6.5. Onischuk has 5.5 points and could theoretically catch them, but it's pretty unlikely with just two rounds to go. In round 10, we get the big match: Kamsky will have White against Nakamura. In the last round the pairings favor Nakamura, who has White against Seirawan while Kamsky is due for Black against Hess. Here are the full round 10 pairings:
Seirawan (3) - Kaidanov (3.5)
Akobian (4.5) - Onischuk (5.5)
Shulman (5) - Robson (4.5)
Stripunsky (3) - Ramirez (3)
Lenderman (4.5) - Hess (4)
Kamsky (7) - Nakamura (6.5)
In the women's championship, Anna Zatonskih and Irina Krush came into the 7th round tied for first, and they maintained the same placements over the next two rounds. They played in round 7 and drew, and in round 8 both defeated their opponents. They, but not the men, have tomorrow off, and then play the last round on Saturday. Zatonskih and Krush both have 6/8 and lead their closest pursuers by a point and a half. In the last round, Zatonskih will have White against Tatev Abrahamyan, who is doing well with 4.5, tied for third. Krush has Black, but against Camilla Baginskaite, who has had a terrible tournament - her score is just 2/8. (On the other hand, her one win in the event came in round 8, with Black over early co-leader Iryna Zenyuk.)