U.S. Championships, Round 5: The Favorites Triumph

The top seeds, Hikaru Nakamura and Wesley So, regained their momentum today at the U.S. Championship, and occupy the two top places after five rounds, entering the first rest day.

Nakamura essayed the Dragon against Daniel Naroditsky, and went for a surprising ...Rxc3 sacrifice. That kind of sac isn't so surprising, but as Nakamura's version involved a queen trade and didn't include the usual compensating pawn it was riskier than usual. The computer wasn't impressed by the sac, but then humans aren't computers. Naroditsky didn't maintain an advantage for very long, and when he decided to return the exchange in hopes of achieving a safe position he must have miscalculated something. 28.e5 was pretty much a blunder, and while it's hard to believe Naroditsky could have played it intending to follow up with 29.Bxe5, not seeing 29...Bh6 until it was too late, it's also hard to see what he thought he'd have after 29.Rxe5. Anyway, returning the exchange only exacerbated White's problems, and a flurry of tactics soon forced Naroditsky's resignation.

So also won, defeating Timur Gareev on the white side of a Fort Knox French, with Gareev offering a funny twist with 9...h5. That didn't work out too badly, and Gareev was still only slightly worse by his 20th move. Unfortunately, the plan he chose with 20...Qb8 followed by 21...e5 wasn't so good, and while So didn't play perfectly he obtained the upper hand and never released it.

So thereby reached 3.5/5, half a point less than Nakamura. With a draw, Ray Robson would tie with So, while a win would keep him in a tie for first. Instead, he lost to Gata Kamsky, leaving both players in a tie for third place. Robson outthought himself in the opening, and chose 2...d5 rather than his usual 2...g6, aiming for the Gruenfeld. His reasoning was that Kamsky always avoids mainstream theory, opting instead for lines like the London System. Robson felt that 2...d5 would be better there, only to be surprised when Kamsky played 3.c4 and headed for "normal" theory. Robson managed to keep a decent position until around move 30 or so, but that forced him to burn a lot of time. As the time control drew near and time pressure increased, Robson couldn't keep up with Kamsky's level of play, and the veteran obtained his first win of the tournament.

The tie for third has a third player, Kayden Troff, who was unbelievably lucky against Conrad Holt, who is apparently one of his customers. Troff had a 4-0 score against Holt coming into the game, but he was totally outplayed in the opening and losing by move 13. Holt had his first chance to put Troff away on move 16 with 16.Qa3!, taking e3 away from Black's queen and preparing Bc7. Instead, he played 16.Bc7, which let Troff fight on with 16...Qe3! 19.Be6 was another error (19.Qc2!), after which the game was equal. It was only a few moves later that Holt again enjoyed a winning advantage, and he maintained it to and past the time control on move 40 as well. All Holt needed was to keep alert and make a few more accurate moves, and his two extra pawns and the terrible Black king would give him the full point.

On move 43, Holt could have played 43.Kf3, 43.Kh1 or even the taunting moves 43.Kg1 and 43.Kf2. Instead, thinking to end the game by stopping the checks, he played 43.Kh3??? This succeeded in both aims: it did end the game, and it did stop the checks. Unfortunately for him, the way the game ended wasn't what he had in mind. Troff played 43...g5!, threatening 44...Qh6#, and to White's misfortune and Black's incredible good luck, there was no way for White to stop the mate that didn't walk into some fork or other. If White played 44.g4, Black would have 44...Qh6+ 45.Kg3 Nf1+, forking the king and queen. If instead 44.Qd6+, then 44...Qxd6 45.Rxd6 g4+ 46.Kh4 and then 46...Nf5+ picks up the rook on the fork. Holt tried 44.Rd6, but once again it was time for a fork: 44...g4+ 45.Kh4 Nf5+. Holt played three more moves and resigned in understandable disgust.

The other two games (Akobian-Onischuk and Shankland-Sevian) were drawn, so let's turn to the women's championship. Here too, the key decisive game saw the winner enjoy a bit of spectacular luck on the way to victory. Irina Krush was falling prey to a great attack by Rusudan Goletiani, and had Goletiani played the naive and obvious 22...dxe5 she would have been well on the way to a victory. Instead, she got too clever by half with 22...Bxg2??, missing the neat rejoinder 23.Rh5! Qxh5 24.Qd4+!, forcing Black to either trade queens or play 24...Kg8, taking the g8 square from Black's rook. Either way, Black's attack was over and White enjoyed a non-trivial winning advantage. Krush slipped up and let Goletiani back into the game a few moves later, but near the time control Black returned the favor. Krush regained the advantage, this time for good. As a result Krush moved to 3.5/5, within half a point of Katerina Nemcova, who drew with Tatev Abrahamyan.

The U.S. Championships Start Tomorrow (Wednesday)

The semi-retired Gata Kamsky has won the last two U.S. Championships, but in neither event did he have to overcome U.S. #1 (and now world #3) Hikaru Nakamura. In this year's U.S. championship, he'll not only have to outperform Nakamura, but world #8 Wesley So as well. On the women's side, Irina Krush will be going for her 27th straight title (give or take...it'll be "just" her 7th title and fourth in a row, if she wins). For some reason her main rival, 4-time champ Anna Zatonskih, isn't playing, so her toughest opposition may come from Tatev Abrahamyan.

Play begins each day at 1 p.m. local time in St. Louis = 2 p.m. ET. The pairings will be determined tonight, and both tournaments are 12-player round-robins. Sticking to the men's event, what do you think: Nakamura, So, or the field?

Wijk aan Zee 2015, Final Round Recap: Carlsen Finishes First, Four Follow Half a Point Behind

It wasn't quite the London Candidates in 2013, but the last round of the Tata Steel Chess Tournament in Wijk aan Zee had more drama than one might have expected. Entering the round Magnus Carlsen led Anish Giri by half a point, with three other players - Wesley So, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Ding Liren - another half a point behind. There was the potential for a five-way tie for first, but that couldn't happen, could it? It almost did.

One of the first games to finish was Radoslaw Wojtaszek vs. Giri, and there was never any question of Giri's winning that battle. Wojtaszek had a slight edge against Giri's Gruenfeld, and if anything he could have made his opponent sweat more than he did.

In the meantime, his three pursuers all won their games and caught up with him. Wesley So demolished Loek van Wely, but it seems to me that was more van Wely's doing than So's. The latter's plan from moves 16 to 18 surrendered his trumps while practically begging So to go on the attack. So did, and it was very effective.

Vachier-Lagrave had a bigger fish to fry, the (now barely) world's #2 player Fabiano Caruana. MVL played a Najdorf and found a nice pawn sac against the 6.h3 e5 7.Nde2 system, and it worked like a charm. A couple of years ago Caruana lost something like five games in a row to the Najdorf, and it would seem from this game that he hasn't quite gotten it figured out just yet.

The third member of the triumvirate, Ding Liren, also won, also with Black against the previous (pre-Caruana) world's #2 player, Levon Aronian. Aronian used the trendy Makagonov against the King's Indian, but this time the Makagonov had gone off the rails. White was losing before move 20, and while Aronian played it out for a long time he never came close to saving it.

So that left only the world champion. With a draw (or of course, a win) against Ivan Saric he would win the tournament, and with the white pieces against a rival rated 200 points below him how hard could this be? As it turned out, surprisingly hard. Saric was comfortably better well into the game and had some advantage even past move 30, but figuring out to make a serious dent in Carlsen's defense proved too difficult. Eventually Carlsen reached safety and briefly had an advantage of his own. Both players were a little inaccurate near the end of the time control, and a couple of moves later the draw was obvious. It was an excellent tournament for Carlsen: he won, he gained rating points, and had a six-game winning streak that included victories over Caruana and Aronian. But with four players just half a point behind - and three of the four younger than him (MVL is a month older) - there's reason to hope that there will be a fight for the #1 spot in the world in the not-too-distant future.

In the other games, Hou Yifan and Vasil Ivanchuk drew uneventfully, while the game that I thought would be an uneventful draw turned out to be anything but. Baadur Jobava outfought and finally defeated Teimour Radjabov on the white side of a King's Indian that turned into a sort of Benko Gambit. Early on Radjabov stood better and may have been winning at one moment, but once Black allowed White's a-pawn to start moving it was Jobava who enjoyed the better chances. I'm impressed that Jobava had the gumption to fight his way to victory - not many players would have a lot of heart after losing nine games out of 12.

The games, with my comments, are here, and these are the final standings:

• 1. Carlsen 9 (out of 13)
• 2-5. Vachier-Lagrave, Giri, So, Ding Liren 8.5
• 6. Ivanchuk 7.5
• 7. Caruana 7
• 8. Radjabov 6
• 9-10. Wojtaszek, Aronian 5.5
• 11. Hou Yifan 5
• 12. Saric 4.5
• 13. van Wely 4
• 14. Jobava 3

In the Challengers' group Wei Yi entered the last round a point ahead of David Navara, but with the black pieces against fellow GM Salem Saleh, who was riding a three-game winning streak, he was by no means assured of tournament victory. Indeed, Navara won quickly against David Klein, while Saleh had an edge against the tournament leader. Like Carlsen against Saric, Wei Yi defended well and didn't allow things to get out of control, and eventually he managed to hold a draw and claim clear first. That means he will be invited to the top group next year, and given his current rate of improvement who knows how strong he'll be by then!

By defeating Anne Haast Sam Shankland took clear third in the tournament with 9/13, a point behind Navara and a point and a half behind Wei Yi. For Carlsen, nine points was enough to win the top section; here, incredibly, it made Shankland almost an afterthought, despite his outstanding performance. Robin van Kampen defeated Valentina Gunina to take fourth with 8.5, Sam Sevian beat Jan Timman (who again played some bizarre chess) to tie with Saleh for fifth-sixth with 7.5, and the day's other winner was Erwin l'Ami (against Ari Dale).

Wijk aan Zee 2015, Round 12 Recap: Giri Defeats So in a Marathon Game, Trails Carlsen by Half a Point

Wesley So's very long undefeated streak came to an end, and it took Anish Giri 111 moves and almost seven hours to do it. It was a brutal game that saw So have to fight for his life practically out of the opening. On move 21 Giri went a pawn up, but Black put up a lot of resistance, to offer a massive understatement, and managed to reach a queen ending. At several points So achieved a tablebase draw, but as humans aren't equipped with tablebases that didn't prove enough to save the game. The level of play and fight from both players was extremely impressive, but in the end it's joy for one and misery for the other. With the win Giri has leapfrogged So into clear second place, half a point behind Magnus Carlsen.

As for Carlsen, his game was finished much sooner. Ding Liren had White and pushed him around for a bit, but he missed an opportunity and Carlsen escaped without too much damage.

That left Ding tied for third with So, a point behind Carlsen and half a point behind Giri, and equal with a very lucky Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. Despite having the white pieces, MVL was quickly outplayed by Levon Aronian in a Catalan. At a certain point Aronian had a choice between two promising-looking continuations. Both seemed to win, but only one did, and needless to say Aronian chose the wrong one. It was a good trap by Vachier-Lagrave, but Aronian had loads of time to double-check his analysis; sadly for him, his mistaken decision took only 27 seconds.

If either Vasil Ivanchuk and Fabiano Caruana won against each other it would have been a four-way tie for third, but they drew a nice game after a tactical flurry fizzled out.

There were two other draws, both with less significance for the leaderboard. Teimour Radjabov had a nice pull against Hou Yifan on the white side of a Catalan, but with patient defense she managed to untangle her queenside and equalize the game. Loek van Wely and Baadur Jobava was the dud of the round, but it was entirely forgiveable, as both players have had a lousy tournament and were happy to get one game closer to its conclusion.

There was one other win in addition to Giri-So, and it was also a marathon in its own right. Ivan Saric and Radoslaw Wojtaszek reeled off 27 moves of Najdorf theory before any of the other players even managed to take off their jackets, but despite this they still wound up playing 71 moves and taking around six hours to finish. Wojtaszek had plenty of chances to draw, but Saric's persistence paid off and Capablanca's "rule" that queen and knight usually make a more effective duo than queen and bishop was confirmed once again.

The tournament site is here, the games (with plenty of notes and more theory than even the typical Najdorf fan can stand) are here, and the final round pairings ensue. (Note: the games start 90 minutes early tomorrow.)

• So (7.5) - van Wely (4)
• Wojtaszek (5) - Giri (8)
• Carlsen (8.5) - Saric (4)
• Aronian (5.5) - Ding Liren (7.5)
• Caruana (7) - Vachier-Lagrave (7.5)
• Hou Yifan (4.5) - Ivanchuk (7)
• Jobava (2) - Radjabov (6)

Some comments. First, expect Carlsen to put in a little extra oomph trying to beat Saric. Doing so ensures that no one catches him, plus it will give him revenge - he lost to him in the Tromso Olympiad last year. I expect to see Giri go for it, but without going too crazy, especially if he sees Carlsen come out of the gate with a great position. I hope to see So bounce back after such a huge disappointment; if he wants to compete for the world championship he's going to need to be resilient and not just a strong player when everything is going his way. The other games involving 7 and 7.5 pointers should be interesting, but Jobava-Radjabov is 99% likely to be drawn.

A note or two on ratings: Giri's win took him to 2797.2, good for fifth on the live list, and if he wins tomorrow he'll join that small, very elite group of players to have broken the 2800 barrier. On the women's side, Hou Yifan started slowly, but if she somehow manages to beat Ivanchuk tomorrow, she will pass Judit Polgar to take #1 on the women's list, the first time someone other than Polgar has headed the list in more than 20 years.

Now for a quick recap of the Challengers' group. Wei Yi won again, crushing Anne Haast in spectacular fashion. That brings him to 10/12 and to a 2696.4 rating - remember, he's only 15 years old! As David Navara only managed to draw with White against the 14-year-old American GM Sam Sevian, Wei Yi leads by a point going into the last round, and thus needs only a draw against Salem Saleh to guarantee himself tournament victory and an invitation to next year's A-group.

The other young American grandmaster Sam S - Sam Shankland - won against Erwin l'Ami, and he's in clear third with 8 points. Other winners: Robin van Kampen over Vladimir Potkin, the aforementioned Salem Saleh vs. Bart Michiels, and in the ongoing tragicomedy of the Challengers' group Jan Timman lost again. He was winning as early as move 21, and while he squandered most of his advantage in time pressure he was still better or maybe even winning after both players had made their 40th moves. So what did he do? He resigned. It wasn't even after a long think - I don't think he even spent five minutes on the decision. The way his last two games ended is really mind-boggling.

Wijk aan Zee 2015, Round 11 Recap: So Cuts Carlsen's Lead to Half a Point

In the famous 1999 edition of the Wijk aan Zee tournament, Garry Kasparov had a seven-game winning streak that included what may be his most famous game ever, his attacking gem against Veselin Topalov. Amazingly, he rated his later win over Peter Svidler even more highly, which shows what great form he was in. His play in the tournament was lauded as one of his best ever results, and it was the first of a long series of super-tournament wins for the then-world champion. One can pile on the praise, but what's generally forgotten about that event is that Viswanathan Anand finished only half a point behind the winner, and he - unlike Kasparov - went undefeated.

I bring this up because something similar is happening this time around. Magnus Carlsen has been leading the current edition for quite a while now, thanks to a six-game winning streak, and he has elevated his already stratospheric rating even higher. But meanwhile, almost as if in the distant background, Wesley So is just half a point behind. As in the 1999 tournament, the leader has lost one game while the runner-up has gone undefeated, and the leader's title, rating, streak and presence has sucked up most of the attention. But it's a close competition, and as the current tournament has two rounds yet to go it isn't over yet. (And as we saw in the Qatar Masters, having a six-game winning streak doesn't guarantee first place - just ask Anish Giri and Vladimir Kramnik.)

So was a point back entering the round, but he cut the gap in half by beating Ivan Saric in what was to me a rather strange game. Saric played a sideline of the Zaitsev Ruy with Black, but even though there wasn't too much theory to master (at least relatively speaking) he seemed unprepared for So's 18th move. His initial reaction was correct, but on his 20th move he played a novelty that left him clearly worse and living on the edge, and his 23rd move lost a piece to a short combination.

Carlsen had White against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and had the pleasure of playing not one but two lines against the latter's Gruenfeld! (It started out as a 7.Be3 Classical line, only to transpose six moves later into the 7.Nf3 + 8.Rb1 variation.) Carlsen got a good position and started to outplay his opponent, but despite winning a pawn he couldn't manage to push him over the edge.

Anish Giri defeated his countryman Loek van Wely on the white side of a Pirc. Giri found some nice tactical ideas, and even though one of them made his life more difficult than it needed to be, he was in control pretty much throughout the game and was a deserved winner. That put him into a tie for third place with Vachier-Lagrave, half a point behind So.

Ding Liren is also in that third place tie after an absolute gift from Radoslaw Wojtaszek. Wojtaszek was better throughout (though maybe never quite winning), and pressing for hour after hour. Had he played g4 on move 59 or 60 he would have kept some winning chances, but after that he needed to show a little caution. Unfortunately, he uncorked the blunder 62.Bb7??, forgetting that Black could have ideas too (this is psychologically understandable when all the winning chances have been yours for the past four hours), and after 62...b5 the game was essentially over. Wojtaszek played three more moves, but there was nothing to be done. Chess can be cruel!

The day's last winner was Hou Yifan. That was her first win of the tournament, and if you've been following the events you can probably guess who her opponent was...Baadur Jobava. He's having the tournament of his life, in a bad way, with just 1.5 points out of 11, and has lost 35.7 rating points and dropped 25 spots on the rating list. Today he was worse but not lost in a queen and bishop ending, but that changed when he blundered the bishop to a simple fork on move 39.

In the department of draws, Levon Aronian was had an enduring edge against Vasil Ivanchuk but couldn't reel him in, while Fabiano Caruana couldn't make anything out of his small edge against Teimour Radjabov.

The tournament site is here, the games with my notes are here, and tomorrow's penultimate round pairings are as follows:

• van Wely (3.5) - Jobava (1.5)
• Radjabov (5.5) - Hou Yifan (4)
• Ivanchuk (6.5) - Caruana (6.5)
• Vachier-Lagrave (7) - Aronian (5)
• Ding Liren (7) - Carlsen (8)
• Saric (3) - Wojtaszek (5)
• Giri (7) - So (7.5)

There are two huge games there, and the chase pack really needs to see a win by Ding Liren as Carlsen will have White against Saric in the last round.

In the Challengers' group it was Wei Yi's turn to pull ahead. The 15-year-old has 9/11 after defeating Bart Michiels, half a point better than David Navara, who could only draw against Valentina Gunina. Sam Shankland won his game with David Klein to take sole possession of third place, half a point ahead of Robin van Kampen (who lost to Salem Saleh) and Vladimir Potkin, who won in bizarre style against Jan Timman.

Timman had to defend a long time, but finally reached a relatively comfortable position with rook and pawn against rook and bishop. Maybe Potkin would eventually win the pawn and reach rook and bishop vs. rook, but while players do sometimes win that ending Timman is a great endgame expert who was writing articles on that ending before Potkin was even born. But see for yourself what happened, starting from the position after Timman's 73rd move. Everything is healthy, and then he plays 74...Kd6-c7 and 75...Kc7-d8, which is absurd and then some, and then there's the insane 76...Re6?? to cap it all off. Assuming this actually happened and isn't a DGT error on steroids, all I can come up with was that Timman thought that 77.Bxe6 would be stalemate. But really, the whole thing is nuts, and I hope someone who was at the tournament today or has read an eyewitness report can shed some light on this.

Wijk aan Zee 2015, Round 8 Recap: Carlsen Wins 5th in a Row and Leads by Half a Point (Updated)

There is no pending draw death taking place before our eyes in Wijk aan Zee. Going into the round almost 50% of the games (24 out of 49) finished with a winner, and in round 8 today only one game in seven finished in a draw - and it took 55 moves. There has been lots of fire and blood on board, which is just what we the fans like to see.

The tournament leader is Magnus Carlsen, who won his fifth game in a row to reach unshared first with five rounds remaining. His victim today was Baadur Jobava, who has been many players' victim in this event, despite winning in the previous round. Jobava trotted out 1.b3, which is one of his signature openings, only to find himself slightly worse in the opening. With resourceful play Jobava managed to equalize and probably would have drawn if the time control had come a move sooner. In the last moves prior to the control Jobava played rather passively, culminating in 40.Qc1. Maybe Jobava could have drawn with 45.Qf2, but it wouldn't have been easy. Instead he swapped down to a queen ending, and that couldn't be saved as White's king was too weak.

Vasil Ivanchuk shared first coming into the round, but lost a very mysterious game to Wesley So. Ivanchuk had White and followed the Viswanathan Anand - Levon Aronian game from round 1 of the 2014 Candidates; a good idea if all you know is the result of that game, but a terrible idea if you know that a humongous opening improvement was found for Aronian that very day. It was published all around the web and in print, and there have even been a couple of games in the database showing the improvement. (Those games featured very decent players, like Jan Gustafsson.) Somehow Ivanchuk missed all the possible sources showing and even detailing the move, and walked right into it. So was ready, played well, and crushed him. Ivanchuk thus fell a full point behind Carlsen, while So moved into (a tie for) second, half a point behind Carlsen. (He also moved up to #6 on the Live Rating List.)

Another player in (the tie for) second is Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, who crushed Anish Giri in a 4.d3 (Anti-) Berlin. Giri's decision to head for a position where MVL would have an isolated d-pawn doesn't seem to have been a good one, as the enemy bishops received too much scope. From there Vachier-Lagrave turned his attention to Black's kingside, and while Giri managed to hold off the attack it came at the price of a lost rook ending.

Ding Liren also won his game and thereby joined the tie for second. His victim was Ivan Saric, whose decision to play 22...Qxc6 was probably based on a miscalculation. My guess is that he missed the nice tactical trick 27.Nxd5, which netted not only an important pawn but the exchange as well.

Radoslaw Wojtaszek had been tied for first going into the previous round, but with a second straight defeat he's almost surely out of the running. He lost with Black in a 6.h3 Najdorf to Teimour Radjabov after sacrificing a pawn but failing to get enough counterplay in return.

Fabiano Caruana started the tournament with two wins but had gone -2 since then. He badly needed a win, and he got one at Loek van Wely's expense. A win over van Wely turned Carlsen's tournament around; who knows, maybe the same will be true for Caruana. Van Wely started coughing up pawns with White in a sort of Hedgehog, and eventually Caruana managed to convert his material advantage into a win.

Finally, Hou Yifan drew with Levon Aronian in an old-fashioned line of the Giuoco Piano. Aronian tried a little too hard to win, and if White had played 42.Rd6+ she might have had good chances for a win. After Hou's 42.Rxd4 her advantage was too small to win, and Aronian held pretty easily after that.

The games, with my comments, are here. Tomorrow is a rest day, and on Tuesday we'll see these pairings for round 9:

• Saric (2.5) - van Wely (2)
• Giri (4) - Ding Liren (5.5)
• So (5.5) - Vachier-Lagrave (5.5)
• Wojtaszek (4) - Ivanchuk (5)
• Carlsen (6) - Radjabov (4.5)
• Aronian (3) - Jobava (1.5)
• Caruana (4.5) - Hou Yifan (2.5)

In the Challengers' group, it was a bloodbath as usual, though there were "only" five decisive games there today as compared to six in the A-group. Haast beat Gunina (in a surprise), Saleh beat Dale, Navara beat Michiels, Wei Yi beat Klein and van Kampen beat Timman. Navara and 15-year-old Wei Yi are running away with the event, sharing first with 6.5/8; Shankland and van Kampen are next with 5 points apiece.

Update: The game score of the Jobava-Carlsen game was corrupted by an arbiter's error at the end; I've updated and uploaded the correct version in the revised link above.

Wijk aan Zee 2015, Round 6: Carlsen Defeats Caruana; Ivanchuk Still Leads

For now. With Magnus Carlsen winning his third game in a row, and his second straight over a key rival, I don't think the odds are looking good for the rest of the field when it comes to the battle for first. Carlsen is fit, playing well and confident, so it's going to take something special to stop him from rolling the field.

Fabiano Caruana had White and good memories of having the last win in their series, and in addition he probably felt like he had the better position as well. Carlsen played risky chess in a Rossolimo Sicilian, counting on his counterplay to compensate for a compromised structure. Maybe he was never in grave danger, but 21.Rfe1, creating a cubbyhole for White's king on e2, might have given Carlsen some difficult problems to solve. After 21.Nh2? Caruana reached an endgame, but not an easy one. He hoped to buy his way out of his problems with 29.Bxf4?, but after 29...exf4 30.Kxg2 f3+ 31.Kf1? Rf4! his king was in a mating net. Carlsen won a few moves later, though he did miss a beautiful way to win more quickly and convincingly.

The win clearly re-established the pecking order in the world rankings. After three rounds Caruana was closing in on the champion, within about 26 points, but now the gap is up to almost 49 points, and Caruana is in danger of falling to third place on the rating list. Levon Aronian, meanwhile, until recently the world's consistent #2 player, has fallen all the way to 8th and is more than 50 points lower-rated than he was a year ago. The biggest winner so far in the rating realm is Wesley So, who continues to fly up the rating list and has passed Hikaru Nakamura to take over the mantle as the highest-rated U.S. player.

Back to the tournament. Vassily Ivanchuk (who is now going by "Vasil" rather than "Vassily" - I didn't hear the explanation of this, so if someone understands this please drop us a line in the comments) continues to lead after his draw with Ivan Saric, but maybe he could have had more if he had played 28.d5.

Ding Liren entered the round tied for second place with Radoslaw Wojtaszek, but lost today to Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. Ding had prepared very deeply in a razor-sharp line of the Caro-Kann, and had he played 25...Rh5 he might have had decent chances for a win. Instead, it was the first of a series of inaccuracies, and by move 32 all he had left was a bad endgame a pawn down, and Vachier-Lagrave converted his advantage smoothly.

As for Wojtaszek, he remains half a point behind the leader after a comfortable draw with Black against Hou Yifan. Hou tried a rare sideline against the Dragon that had worked well for Vladimir Onischuk, but Wojtaszek was well-prepared and put the line out of business.

Wojtaszek and Carlsen are tied for second, and So joined them with a win over the suffering Baadur Jobava. Jobava found another interesting opening novelty - 7.Bd5 in the Giuoco Piano - and it looks like a good surprise idea for blitz or rapid. Classical chess is another story, and after a 15-minute think So found a way to neutralize it, and soon he stood better. Thanks to his bishop pair and pressure against f2 Black was always doing well, and with the exception of an understandable error on move 25 it was a convincing victory for the younger player.

With a win Anish Giri could have made it a four-way tie for second, but if I've analyzed 15.Nf3 correctly he was fortunate to get a draw against Teimour Radjabov. Radjabov went for an entertaining rook sacrifice instead with 15.fxe6 dxe6 16.Rxf7, and the result was an entertaining flurry resulting in a perpetual check.

Finally, in the only game where neither player could at least reach a tie for second with a win, Loek van Wely and Levon Aronian drew by repetition after 30 moves. The game had its interesting moments, though, and may have some theoretical significance as well, so it would be wrong to write it off as a "grandmaster draw" in the bad old sense.

The tournament site is here, the games (with my comments) are here, and these are tomorrow's pairings for round 7:

• Ding Liren (3.5) - van Wely (2)
• Saric (2.5) - Vachier-Lagrave (3.5)
• Giri (3.5) - Ivanchuk (4.5)
• So (4) - Radjabov (3)
• Wojtaszek (4) - Jobava (.5)
• Carlsen (4) - Hou Yifan (2)
• Aronian (2) - Caruana (3)

In the Challengers' group there were five wins, and four of them were quick and brutal: van Kampen's win vs. Dale, Navara's over Timman, Wei Yi's against Sevian and Shankland's vs. Michiels. Klein also won, vs. Gunina, in a long ending, while Haast-Saleh and l'Ami-Potkin were drawn. Navara and Wei Yi lead with 4.5/6 half a point ahead of Shankland, l'Ami and van Kampen.

Nakamura-So Death Match: Who Won? (Updated)

If anyone knows, please pass it along.

UPDATE: As approximately 6,000 people told me (thanks to all of you!), starting with Allen Becker, Hikaru Nakamura won his Chess.com "Death Match" against Wesley So by an overall score of 21.5-11.5. Nakamura won the 5' + 1" stage with an undefeated 6.5-2.5, split the 3' + 1" stage 4.5-4.5 (with only one draw), and won the bullet (1' + 1") finale 10.5-4.5 (again, with only one draw). There's a nice report here, and I think there are others in the comments section as well.

So Wins North American Open, Hits New Rating High

It has been a very good and eventful year for Wesley So. He switched his federation to the U.S.A., gained a ton of rating points - no causal link between the two, of course. He started the year with a good result in Wijk aan Zee, won the Capablanca Memorial, came in a strong second in Edmonton (half a point behind Vassily Ivanchuk), won the ACP Golden Classic, won the Millionaire Chess Open, won all his games in the US Chess League this fall and has now finished the year with an easy victory in the North American Open in Las Vegas. So won his first six games to take a full point lead with three rounds to go. He nearly defeated second seed Bu Xiangzhi in round 7, drew quickly with Black in round 8 and finished with another win to take clear first with 8/9, a point ahead of the next four players.

So is currently 10th in the Live Ratings (which will be official in about 24 hours), and will get a good test in a week and a half in Wijk aan Zee. Further, while he has been overshadowed by some of the other super-prodigies like Fabiano Caruana (come home!) and Anish Giri, not to mention the world champion, it's worth remembering that So just turned 21 a couple of months ago and ought to have plenty of improvement left in him. His presence ought to be a real boon to American chess as well, and hopefully he and Hikaru Nakamura can spur each other on to bigger and better things.

Wesley So, U.S. #2

The U.S. national team just got stronger. Much stronger. Welcome aboard, Wesley So! (HT: Allen Becker)

Now we just need to recruit a 2800 from somewhere...