Caruana Draws With Liang, Maintains Lead; Yip's Streak Is Snapped
GM Fabiano Caruana has taken another step towards defending his title at the 2024 U.S. Chess Championships after securing a draw with second-placed GM Awonder Liang and moving to 5.5/8. GM Leinier Dominguez's win over GM Sam Sevian was the only decisive result in round nine, leaving nine players fighting for three podium spots.
In the women's event, IM Carissa Yip's historic streak finally came to an end due to a loss to FM Megan Lee. The 21-year-old looked set to press in the game but overplayed her hand and lost. Following a win with Black against GM Irina Krush, WGM Gulrukhbegim Tokhirjonova has moved to 6.5/9, a point and a half behind Yip.
Round 10 of the U.S. Championships will start on October 22 at 2 p.m. ET/20:00 CEST/11:30 p.m. IST.
Round 9 Standings: Championship
Round 9 Standings: Women's Championship
U.S. Championship
Round 9 Results: Championship
In an episode of the C-Squared podcast posted on the rest day, Caruana highlighted energy levels as a key metric he would be monitoring at the tail-end of the U.S. Championship, hoping to avoid a similar slump to what he experienced in the final rounds of the recent Olympiad in Budapest.
Caruana stated the following about the difficulty of maintaining his level:
"To keep concentration and not have any lapses during the game, you pretty much need to have one hundred percent energy. In normal life, we don't really think about that."
Despite a strong performance in the championship so far, signs of slight energy drop-offs appeared in Caruana's game against Liang, begging the question, does he possess enough energy to get himself over the line?
22.Qe4?, offering a trade of queens, was indicative of Caruana's preference to finish the game quickly and Liang obliged. However, when the trade was complete it was Liang who caught the scent of opportunity. Playing in his trademark speedy style, Liang squandered his advantage and eventually settled for a draw.
A disappointing start to the tournament is quickly becoming a distant memory for Dominguez as he surged to his second win in the last three rounds and moved to 4/8. Playing against Sevian's English Opening: Symmetrical, Anti-Benoni Variation, the tournament's second oldest player lashed out with 19...f5? and was suddenly in trouble.
Experience and resolve came to the fore though and Dominguez muddied the waters enough to trigger a rare Sevian blunder.
With this victory, Dominguez joins Sevian on 4/8, along with GMs Wesley So, and Sam Shankland. The U.S. number-four stated after the game that he doesn't worry about the overall tournament standings, rather, he thinks of every game as "an opportunity to show your best."
Shankland's games are always exciting to watch from a theoretical perspective but today it was his opponent Oparin who produced the excitement, essaying a new line in the Sicilian Defense: Taimanov, Bastrikov Variation with 10.h4!?. Joining in on the flank pawn fun, Shankland followed up with 10...h5, and the players quickly discovered a draw by repetition ending on move 17.
A near-flawless, 94-move, marathon draw between GM Ray Robson and So and an uneventful Nimzo-Indian Defense in Mishra-Aronian capped off the round and with two rounds to go, Caruana or Liang are the likely candidates to acquire the U.S. Championship crown.
Caruana will play his last game with Black in round 10 against Dominguez, while the pressure is on Liang to make in-roads with Black against So.
Round 10 Draw: Championship
U.S. Women's Championship
Round 9 Results: Women's
Yip's exceptional run came to an abrupt halt on Monday as she faltered against the tournament's second-lowest-rated player, Lee. Yip lodged a knight on f5 in the Giuoco Pianissimo, following the advice of the old saying, "With a knight on f5, the game wins itself."
Though the position was aesthetically pleasing, finding the moves proved challenging and Yip soon erred, perhaps influenced by the pressure of scoring 11/11.
When Yip played the inaccurate 33.Qd2? Lee pounced and confirmed victory eight moves later.
In a Saint Louis Chess Club Twitter post, Yip mentioned that "the feeling that you get when you lose after a long game" is what she dislikes most about chess. Although her round-nine game was not particularly long, the snapping of her streak may have brought up similar feelings.
What do you dislike the most about being a chess player?😉 we asked this question the participants of US Chess Championships. Check their answers! What about yourself?#uschesschamps #chess #chessplayer pic.twitter.com/AKjrsYG46U
— Saint Louis Chess Club (@STLChessClub) October 21, 2024
— Carissa Yip (@carissayipchess) October 22, 2024
Tokhirjonova kept herself in the running for the title by clinching the win against Krush in round nine but will likely need to win her last two games to give herself a mathematical chance. If Yip scores at least 0.5/2 in her final games she will guarantee herself at least equal first.
The shortest decisive game of the day was WGM Jennifer Yu's 23-move win over WGM Tatev Abrahamyan, which featured a kingside hack attack by the 2022 champion.
Yu might have left her title run too late this year but her game was beautiful, reminiscent of her indelible run two years ago.
Of the remaining games, IM Alice Lee's hold against IM Anna Zatonskih was the most exciting— the 15-year-old survived +5 and +3 positions at different points of the game.
Arriving in St. Louis to support his wife WGM Atousa Pourkashiyan and play 2024 Chess 9LX (a chess960 event that will take place at the Saint Louis Chess Club from October 27), GM Hikaru Nakamura weighed in on Yip's performance:
"When I look at Carissa's performance over the last two years she's clearly figured out a couple of things that work in this event. She moves very, very fast, she's playing a lot of very double-edged positions, and my general take is that most of the other players in the women's section are struggling to deal with that."
The run home for Yip includes games against a struggling Zatonskih and her Olympiad teammate Alice Lee.
Round 10 Draw: Women's
The live broadcast was hosted by WGM Katerina Nemcova and GMs Yasser Seirawan and Cristian Chirila.
See what happenedYou can follow the games from the U.S. Championships on our Events Pages: Open | Women.
The 2024 U.S. Chess Championship is an invitational classical event that determines the chess champion of the United States. The 2024 U.S. Women's Championship is being held concurrently. Both events start on October 11 and have the same format: a 12-player, 11-round tournament with a $250,000 prize fund for the U.S. Championship, and $152,000 for the U.S. Women’s Championship.
Previous Coverage
- Round 8: Yip Scores 8th Straight Win, 3 Away From Fischer's Record
- Round 7: Yip Wins Seventh Straight Game, Liang Closes Gap To Caruana
- Round 6: Yoo Temporarily Suspended By US Chess And Charged By Police; Caruana, Yip Lead
- Round 5: Yoo Expelled From U.S. Championship Due To "Gross Violations" Of Code Of Conduct
- Round 4: Caruana Beats Mishra, Assumes Sole Lead; Yip Still Perfect
- Round 3: Olympiad Players Fall As Caruana, Niemann, Liang Join The Leaders
- Round 2: So, Sevian Register First Wins; Caruana, Shankland Miss Golden Opportunities
- Round 1: "Fischer Prize" Off The Table As U.S. Championship Gets Underway
