Saint Louis: Fireworks in round five

by André Schulz
4/19/2016 – Tournament leader Fabiano Caruana drew in round five of the US Championship in St. Louis and this allowed Wesley So, who won a smooth and powerful attacking game against Varuzhan Akobian, to regain the shared lead. Hikaru Nakamura showed tactical acumen against Sam Shankland while Gata Kamsky boldly attacked Jeffrey Xiong but blundered in the end.

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Follow the games live on playchess.com (rounds start at 1 pm local time)

After the fourth round of the US Championship in St. Louis Fabiano Caruana led the field by half a point but in round five he had to concede a draw against Alexander Shabalov, which allowed Wesley So to catch up to Caruana.

So played a textbook attacking game against Varuzhan Akobian and quickly smashed Black's position in a Rubinstein French.

 

Hikaru Nakamura ppeared to be well recovered from his loss against Fabiano Caruana and played a fine game against Sam Shankland. The game started as a Caro-Kann but then entered French structures, in which Nakamura showed powerful chess and demolished Black's position with the typical f4-f5 break.

 

The 15-year old Jefferey Xiong, the youngest player in the field, started with four draws but in round five scored his first win - and against elo-heavyweight Gata Kamsky to boot. The young talent profited from a blackout of his opponent. Kamsky, who was playing with Black, opted for Alekhine's Defense and sacrificed a piece early on. This investment gave him lots of compensation and a long-term attack. However, Xiong defended stubbornly and in the end Kamsky fell victim to a blunder.

Kamsky played courageously but was not rewarded (Photo: Austin Fuller)

 

 

Results of round five

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

 

Alexander Onischuk won against Akshat Chandra (Photo: Spectrum Studios)

Alexander Shabalov drew against Caruana (Photo: Lennart Ootes)

Games of rounds 1 to 5

 

 

Standings after five rounds

Women's Tournament

The Women's tournament (Photo: Austin Fuller)

Tatev Abrahamyan has a lot of fans (Photo: Lennart Ootes)

Irina Krush and... (Photo: Spectrum Studios)

... Anna Zatonskih drew (Photo: Lennart Ootes)

In the women's tournament Irina Krush played against Anna Zatonskih - and these two players have been dominating the US Women's Championship for the last ten years. But after they drew a long game Nazi Paikidze took the sole lead. She won against Jennifer Yu and is the only player with 4.0/5.

Results of round five

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

Games of rounds 1 to 5

 

Standings after five rounds

 

Maurice Ashley with students and fans (Photo: Austin Fuller)

Jennifer Shahade and Yasser Seirawan in the chess studio (Photo: Austin Fuller)

Photos: Tournament page..


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

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