Caruana targets first US crown

The US Championship, the strongest and richest national championship anywhere, is underway at the Saint Louis chess club and scholastic center in Missouri.

Top-seeded Fabiano Caruana, ranked second in the world, will be seeking his first national title and the $50,000 champion’s prize. Wesley So, Hikaru Nakamura, and Leinier Dominguez are expected to provide stiff competition.

Twelve invited GMs are seeing action in the $194,000 single round robin event, which selects representatives for the next world championship cycle.

After three rounds, the standings read: Jeffrey Xiong, 2.5, So, Nakamura and Dominguez, at 2.0 apiece, Caruana, Alexander Lenderman, Varuzhan Akobian, Samuel Sevian, 1.5, Samuel Shankland, Awonder Liang and Ray Robson, 1.0 and Timur Garayev, 0.5.

* * * Kiril Alekseenko of Russia, Kacper Piorum of Poland, Maxim Rodshtein of Israel and Ferenc Berkes of Hungary shared the lead by one-half point after five rounds of the European Individual Championship in Skopje, Macedonia.

The leaders scored 4.5 points in the 11-round Swiss system tournament, which brought together 361 players, including 132 GMs, from various federations of the European Chess Union. The championship chooses 22 qualifiers for the World Cup. * * * In this game, with equal fervor, if not equal success, both players proved that tactics are 100 percent of chess.