
For the sixth consecutive year, the best chess players in the U.S. have gathered in Saint Louis to fight for the title of U.S. Champion and U.S. Women's Champion. GM Gata Kamsky is defending his title while recently anointed grandmaster Irina Krush is looking for her sixth title at the 2014 U.S. Women's Championship. The events are being held simultaneously from May 7 through May 20 at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis (CCSCSL). The games start each day at 1 p.m., with every move broadcast live and discussed by the powerful commentary team of GMs Yasser Seirawan, WGM Jennifer Shahade and Maurice Ashley on the official web site.
Round 9: Logjam atop the leaderboards
By Brian Jerauld
There is a share for the lead atop the U.S. Championship, as time dwindles away with two rounds remaining. Varuzhan Akobian entered Saturday in clear first by a full point but never got comfortable in his eventual loss – his first of the tournament – to Sam Shankland.

Back in the lead after a miracle win: Aleksandr Lenderman
Akobian stays in first with 6.0/9, though now shares the position, after Aleksandr Lenderman caught pace by materializing a surprising win from a drawn-looking position against Daniel Naroditsky.

Reigning champion Gata Kamsky (above left) – unbeaten, yet only at +1 through 9 rounds – picked up another draw with Mackenzie Molner and now trails a half-point behind the leaders in third place (5.5/9).

Also in third place is 2013 U.S. Open winner Josh Friedel (above), the lowest-rated player in the field, who has quietly turned in 3.5 points across the last four rounds to enter the fray.
Men results of round nine
White |
Rtng |
Result
|
Black |
Rtng |
GM Ramirez, Alejandro |
2595 |
½-½
|
GM Onischuk, Alexander |
2668 |
GM Robson, Ray |
2631 |
1-0
|
GM Gareev, Timur |
2653 |
GM Erenburg, Sergey |
2633 |
0-1
|
GM Friedel, Joshua E |
2505 |
GM Shankland, Samuel L |
2634 |
1-0
|
GM Akobian, Varuzhan |
2643 |
GM Kamsky, Gata |
2713 |
½-½
|
GM Molner, Mackenzie |
2522 |
GM Lenderman, Aleksandr |
2582 |
1-0
|
GM Naroditsky, Daniel |
2543 |
Sam Shankland may no longer be in the race for the national title, but it doesn’t leave him any less dangerous an opponent: tension has filled each one of his games this tournament, his adversaries holding their breath on what kind of opening-book potion he might have concocted just for them. The 22-year-old had already reached into his bag of tricks in round six to knock then-leader Aleksandr Lenderman from his pedestal, and on Saturday he did it again to another frontrunner in Varuzhan Akobian.

Varuzhan Akobian pondering where to put his bishop on move ten

Sam (what was his surname again?) thinking about how to exploit 10...Bc5
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1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 Bf5 4.Nf3 e6 5.Be2 c5 6.0-0 Nc6 7.c3 cxd4 8.Nxd4 Nge7 9.Nxf5 Nxf5 10.Bd3 Bc5 11.Nd2 g6 12.Nf3 Nh4 13.Re1 Nxf3+ 14.Qxf3 Rc8 15.a3 Be7 16.Qg3 a6 17.Bh6 Bf8 18.Bf4 Bg7 19.h4 Bf8 20.h5 Be7 21.Rad1 Na5 22.Qg4 Nc4 23.Re2 Qb6 24.Bc1 Qc7 25.Qg3 b5 26.Bc2 Qc6 27.Rd3 Rd8 28.Rf3 g5 29.h6 d4 30.Qg4 dxc3 31.Rxc3 Qb6 32.b3 Qa5 33.Qf3 g4 34.Qc6+ Kf8 35.b4 Bxb4 36.Rxc4 bxc4 37.axb4 Qa1 38.Qc5+ Ke8 39.Re1 g3 40.fxg3 Qd4+ 41.Qxd4 Rxd4 42.Bg5 Rg8 43.Ba4+ Kf8 44.Be3 1–0
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Shankland,S | 2634 | Akobian,V | 2643 | 1–0 | 2014 | B12 | ch-USA 2014 | 9.1 |
Lenderman,A | 2582 | Naroditsky,D | 2543 | 1–0 | 2014 | E94 | ch-USA 2014 | 9.2 |
Kamsky,G | 2713 | Molner,M | 2522 | ½–½ | 2014 | A48 | ch-USA 2014 | 9.3 |
Erenburg,S | 2633 | Friedel,J | 2505 | 0–1 | 2014 | B46 | ch-USA 2014 | 9.4 |
Robson,R | 2631 | Gareev,T | 2653 | 1–0 | 2014 | C45 | ch-USA 2014 | 9.5 |
Ramirez,A | 2595 | Onischuk,A | 2668 | ½–½ | 2014 | E06 | ch-USA 2014 | 9.6 |
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The image of the day: Varuzhan Akobian mulling his defeat in front of a picture of his vanquisher
Men's standings after nine rounds

The final two rounds of the U.S. Championship promise a web of matchups between the four leaders, including Sunday’s headliner between Akobian and Kamsky.
Sam Shankland

When Sam Shankland was just 18 he announced he would be retiring from the game of chess. In order to honor his previous commitments, however, he agreed to play in one more event, the 2010 U.S. Junior Closed Championship, which he managed to win after facing back-to-back playoff matches against Parker Zhao and tourney favorite GM Ray Robson. That achievement offered him an automatic invitation to play in the 2011 U.S. Championship, which ultimately proved to be a difficult offer to refuse.
Sam performed admirably at the 2011 U.S. Championship, edging veteran GM Alexander Onischuk in a playoff to reach the four-player quad finals. There he ran into eventual champion GM Gata Kamsky, who topped him 1.5-0.5. After his defeat, Shankland remained upbeat. “Just because I’m not in the running for first place doesn’t mean the tournament is over,” he said. “Plus third place sounds cooler than fourth. You can call it a bronze medal.” Shankland's positive attitude proved prescient as he topped GM Robert Hess in a playoff for third place. The Brandeis University student has called the U.S. Championship "his dream tournament for the year."
Shankland failed to qualify for the U.S. Championship in 2012, and finished 13th out of 24 players in 2013. But he has been on top of his game as of late, pushing his USCF rating to an all-time high of 2707 following the Eastern Class Championshipsin mid-March. Because of his usually strong, but sometimes unpredictable, play, he is an intriguing player to watch at this year's championship. [Source: Tournament site] |
Women's Championship round eight
White |
Rtng |
Result
|
Black |
Rtng |
GM Krush, Irina |
2489 |
1-0
|
IM Zatonskih, Anna |
2469 |
WGM Nemcova, Katerina |
2282 |
½-½
|
FM Melekhina, Alisa |
2151 |
WIM Zenyuk, Iryna |
2249 |
½-½
|
WGM Baginskaite, Camilla |
2267 |
WGM Abrahamyan, Tatev |
2366 |
1-0
|
NM Eswaran, Ashritha |
1979 |
WGM Foisor, Sabina-Francesca |
2238 |
0-1
|
WIM Ni, Viktorija |
2206 |

Only one round remains in the 2014 U.S. Women’s Championship, though for a moment, it wasn’t entirely clear the extra day would be needed. The five-time reigning champion Irina Krush (above) skidded into the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis on Saturday afternoon, having just suffered three straight draws and falling a full point behind the leader’s pace.

Sobering the mood even more was the woman who sat in front of her – both in the standings and now across the board: Anna Zatonskih, Krush’s enemy No. 1 and a four-time champion herself, ready to call it halves on their decade-long rivalry. And like everyone else, Krush could do the math: Saturday was win or go home.
But she answered the call in Monday’s round eight, taking early advantage as White and spending the rest of the 75-move thriller slowly squeezing out any hope for a draw. The result knots the two in first place with 6.0/8, and also allowed Tatev Abrahamyan (5.5/8) into the fold after her win over Ashritha Eswaran.
Krush was certainly no stranger to pivotal matchups with Zatonskih, and Monday’s game left little doubt as to what hung in the balance. “Of course it was a must-win,” Krush said. “If you want to do anything in this championship, it’s a must-win. You can’t ask other people to do your work for you. I had sort of fallen asleep for a few rounds there, and woken up in this situation. The minimum I could do to get this tournament back on track is to win today, because otherwise I just wouldn’t deserve to be the champion.”
Though both players seemed lost early through the Catalan line, Krush was instantly the aggressor, skirting the early center fight and wrecking Black’s queenside in the opening. “I had a bad position out of the opening; I was surprised,” Zatonskih said. “I had this planned for White, I just forgot the lines. I just completely don’t remember them. Irina has improved her endgame dramatically recently. Before, it was worse, but now ...”
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1.c4 Nf6 2.Nf3 e6 3.g3 d5 4.Bg2 c5 5.0-0 Nc6 6.d4 dxc4 7.Qa4 cxd4 8.Nxd4 Qxd4 9.Bxc6+ Bd7 10.Rd1 Bxc6 11.Qxc6+ bxc6 12.Rxd4 Nd5 13.Rxc4 Kd7 14.e4 Nb6 15.Rc2 f5 16.f3 fxe4 17.fxe4 Bd6 18.Be3 Rhc8 19.Nd2 e5 20.Rd1 Ke6 21.Rdc1 Kd7 22.Nb3 Rc7 23.Na5 Rac8 24.Kg2 c5 25.Nb3 Na4 26.Nd2 Nb6 27.Nc4 Nxc4 28.Rxc4 Ke6 29.b3 Kd7 30.Ra4 Ke7 31.Kf3 Rf8+ 32.Ke2 Rb8 33.Ra5 Rbc8 34.Rc4 Ke6 35.Rca4 c4 36.Rxc4 Rxc4 37.bxc4 Rxc4 38.Kd3 Rb4 39.Rxa7 h5 40.Rxg7 Rb2 41.a4 Ra2 42.Rh7 Ra3+ 43.Ke2 Ra2+ 44.Kf3 Ra3 45.Kf2 Ra2+ 46.Kf1 Ra1+ 47.Kg2 Ra2+ 48.Kh3 Rxa4 49.Rh6+ Kd7 50.Rxh5 Rxe4 51.Bg5 Ke6 52.Rh8 Ra4 53.Rh4 Ra2 54.Kg4 Kd5 55.Rh8 Ra4+ 56.Kf5 Ra2 57.h4 Rf2+ 58.Kg4 e4 59.Rd8 Ke6 60.Re8+ Kd5 61.h5 Rf3 62.Bh4 Rf7 63.h6 Be5 64.Bg5 Kd4 65.Be3+ Kxe3 66.Rxe5 Kd3 67.Kh5 e3 68.g4 e2 69.g5 Ra7 70.Re8 Ra8 71.Rxe2! Kxe2 72.h7 Kf3 73.g6 Ra5+ 74.Kh6 Kg4 75.h8Q 1–0
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Krush,I | 2489 | Zatonskih,A | 2469 | 1–0 | 2014 | A13 | ch-USA w 2014 | 8.1 |
Abrahamyan,T | 2366 | Eswaran,A | 1979 | 1–0 | 2014 | B32 | ch-USA w 2014 | 8.2 |
Nemcova,K | 2282 | Melekhina,A | 2151 | ½–½ | 2014 | C50 | ch-USA w 2014 | 8.3 |
Zenyuk,I | 2249 | Baginskaite,C | 2267 | ½–½ | 2014 | E11 | ch-USA w 2014 | 8.4 |
Foisor,S | 2238 | Ni,V | 2206 | 0–1 | 2014 | A53 | ch-USA w 2014 | 8.5 |
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The final moments: Anna Zatonskih has just played 74...Kg4,

... Irina Krush queens her h-pawn

And Anna resigns, making Irina a co-leader with one round to go
Women's standings after eight rounds

The U.S. Women’s Championship enters its final rest day on Sunday. Monday’s round nine will settle matters: Zatonskih takes white against Katerina Nemcova (4.5/8), Krush defends as Black against Viktorija Ni (3/8), as does Abrahamyan against Camilla Baginskaite (1.5/8). If necessary, a playoff is scheduled for Tuesday. The women’s tournament takes a scheduled rest day Sunday.
Iryna Zenyuk

Iryna Zenyuk has two huge goals in life: to be a chess champion and to help the environment. She has a good start on her chess goal, ranking as one of the top ten women players in the U.S. And after receiving a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University last year, Iryna is well on her way to helping develop ways to make renewable energy more prevalent.
Iryna is currently is a postdoctorate fellow at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab researching electrochemical energy conversion devices. Her near-term goal is to get a tenure-track faculty position at a lead research university where she will be able to realize her passion for renewable energy research and teaching. She defines her interests this way: chess is her love; it's fun. But mechanical engineering will give her the means to give back to society.
Iryna will undoubtably fight hard for her passions, as she is used to that overcoming long odds and adversity. Iryna's father died when she was eight and her mother moved to the U.S., leaving her and her brother in the Ukraine alone until Iryna could join her six years later. "It taught me to be independent," she says without a trace of bitterness. Other interests play a big role in Iryna's life too. Although only 5 feet 4, she was able to play volleyball in college.

Ukrainian friendship: Iryna and Irina, Zenyuk and Krush
Furthermore, she is friends with many of her chess competitors. "I have a lot of chess friends," Iryna said. "We do the normal stuff: hang out, go to restaurants ... I don't call myself solitary." [Source: Tournament site] |
Report: Brian Jerauld + ChessBase, photos by Lennart Ootes