Caruana and Paikidze are the new US Champions!

by André Schulz
4/26/2016 – Before the last round of the US Championship 2016 Fabiano Caruana was half a point ahead of his rivals and had to play with Black. But Caruana played energetically and this strategy paid off: he won the game and the title. Wesley So finished on place two, Hikaru Nakamura became third. The final round of the US Women's Championship was much more dramatic.

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The final round  (Photo: Austin Fuller)

In the final round of the US Championship 2016 Fabiano Caruana took no chances. Before the round Caruana had half a point more than his closest rivals and was to play with the black pieces but still left no doubt that he was willing to win his last round game against Akshat Chandra. From the start he put pressure on his young opponent who finally cracked - which allowed Caruana to become US Champion 2016.

Fabiano Caruana, US Champion 2016

 

 

Congratulations to the new Champion (Photo: Lennart Ootes)

Caruana scored 8.5/11 and this strong performance helped him to become number two in the world again. Wesley So, who won silver, and Hikaru Nakamura, who won bronze, finished one point behind Caruana. The young Jeffery Xiong once again showed his talent and added some more points to his already impressively high rating.

Wesley So became second (Photo: Lennart Ootes)

Results of the 11. and last round

Br. Tit Name Coun ELO Ergebnis Titel Name Coun ELO
1 IM Akshat Chandra
 
2501 0 - 1 GM Fabiano Caruana
 
2794
2 GM Ray Robson
 
2663 ½ - ½ GM Hikaru Nakamura
 
2790
3 GM Aleksandr Lenderman
 
2623 ½ - ½ GM Wesley So
 
2773
4 GM Alexander Onischuk
 
2664 ½ - ½ GM Varuzhan Akobian
 
2610
5 GM Jeffery Xiong
 
2588 ½ - ½ GM Alexander Shabalov
 
2520
6 GM Gata Kamsky
 
2667 ½ - ½ GM Samuel L Shankland
 
2648

 

All games

 

 

Final standings

 

Women's Tournament

In the women's tournament the situation before the last round was similar. After ten rounds Tatev Abrahamyan was leading by half a point and "only" needed to win in the last round to secure the title. However, she was less lucky than Caruana in the open event and lost her last game against Ashritha Eswaran. The 16-year old Eswaran completely outplayed her opponent.

 

A big disappointment for Tatev Abrahamyan (Photo: Lennart Ootes)

Played like Karpov: Ashritha Eswaran (Photo: Lennart Ootes)

This gave Nazi Paikidze a chance to win the title - if she managed to win with Black against Irina Krush. Paikidze managed to spice up a rather quiet opening and this courage was rewarded:

 

 

The new US Women Champion:

Nazi Paikidze

 

Results of the 11. and last round

Br. Tit Name Coun ELO Ergebnis Titel Name Coun ELO
1 WIM Ashritha Eswaran
 
2149 1 - 0 WGM Tatev Abrahamyan
 
2324
2 GM Irina Krush
 
2458 0 - 1 IM Nazi Paikidze
 
2346
3 IM Anna Zatonskih
 
2469 1 - 0   Carissa Yip
 
2109
4 WGM Sabina Francesca Foisor
 
2258 1 - 0 WIM Agata Bykovtsev
 
2176
5 FM Alisa Melekhina
 
2205 0 - 1 WGM Katerina Nemcova
 
2367
6 FM Akshita Gorti
 
2242 ½ - ½ WFM Jennifer R Yu
 
2102

All games

 

 

Final standings

 

Jennifer Shahade and Yasser Seirawan provided the entertaining live commentary
together with Maurice Ashley and Alejandro Ramirez (Photo: Lennart Ootes)

 

On Thursday and Friday Garry Kasparov will play a blitz tournament with Caruana, Nakamura and So, the top three finishers of the US Championship 2016. (Photo: Lennart Ootes)

Photos: Tournament page (Lennart Ootes, Austin Fuller, Spectrum Studios)

Tournament page...


André Schulz started working for ChessBase in 1991 and is an editor of ChessBase News.

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