Tough fight for the U.S. title
Three-time former U.S. Champion Grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura was considered the favorite to win this year’s recently completed American Championship. Even so, to do that he would have to overcome one of the fiercest packs of title predators in our country’s history.
Gata Kamsky, the fivetime defending Champion, was once ranked fourth worldwide and established himself as a World Title Candidate several times. At his peak in 1996, he even played a match as the official Challenger to all-time great World Champion Anatoly Karpov. Despite all that, Wesley So, 21-year-old newcomer from the Philippines, ranked eighth internationally, took away the No. 2 slot in America from Kamsky in 2014.
These three would have to overcome other outstanding GMs.
As a youth, Daniel Naroditsky, now 19, won the World Under-12 Championship and earned the title of U.S. Junior Champion in 2013. Another former U.S. Junior Champion, Sam Shankland was awarded an Olympiad gold medal. In last year’s championship Varuzhan Akobian, a two-time winner of the World Open, came extremely close to victory, losing in a playoff with Kamsky.
Nakamura took the lead at the start and maintained it throughout. He was the only lossless competitor. It was close though. If he had drawn his last round game against Onischuk, he would have tied with Robson, who finished second by 1⁄2 point. If he had lost that game, Robson would have been the Champion. The victory he needed is included with this column. Overreaching to win, Onischuk became too aggressive in the ending and even blundered (27...Nxf2?), losing material on a simple combination.
Wesley So did not live up to expectations, experiencing an unusually rocky event. He lost winning games against both Robson and Sevian and fell into a home-prepared line of play against Holt. Then, he was forfeited after six moves for writing notes to himself during the game with Akobian, a technical rule violation. He recovered to finish off his last two foes and end up placing third. Woman’s champ again
At the Women’s U.S. Championship held concurrently with the main event, defending Champion GM Irina Krush prevailed. She finished a point ahead of Nazi Paikidze and Katerina Nemcova. This is the fourth victory in a row for the seventime titleholder. Now 31, she first became U.S. Women’s Champion at age 14, a youngest-ever record.
Game of the week Nakamura, Hikaru-Onischuk, Alexander U.S. Championships St. Louis
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Bc4 Nf6 5.e5 d5 6.Bb5 Ne4 7.Nxd4 Bc5 8.Be3 0–0 9.Nxc6 bxc6 10.Bxc5 Nxc5 11.Bxc6 Rb8 12.0–0 Rxb2 13.Qxd5 Qxd5 14.Bxd5 Rxc2 15.Na3 Re2 16.Rac1 Nd3 17.Rxc7 Be6 18.Bb3 a5 19.Ra7 Bxb3 20.axb3 Rxe5 21.Nc4 Rb5 22.Rb1 Nc5 23.Nxa5 Re8 24.g3 g6 25.b4 Nd3 26.Nc6 Re2 27.Rd7 Nxf2 28.Nd4 Nh3+ 29.Kh1 Nf2+ 30.Kg2 Nd1+ 31.Nxe2 1–0