US Championship Rd8: Akobian and Foisor join leaders

All photos by Lennart Ootes

In the open section, the giants’ ‘close encounter’ was indeed of the ‘third kind’ where one of the co-leaders and top seed Wesley So drew an uneventful game against Hikaru Nakamura who is in hot pursuit only a half point shy of the leaders.

It was a fighting opening line, but in the end Hikaru Nakamura's game against Welsey So fizzled out

Wesley So vs Hikaru Nakamura

Another giant of the event, Fabiano Caruana, bounced back after yesterday’s disaster at the hands of Daniel Naroditsky who went down for the second time in a row with the black pieces. Fabiano Caruana is a half point behind the co-leaders after dismantling Daniel Naroditsky in a rare line of the French Winawer where things went wrong for Naroditsky early in the game.

Gata Kamsky played the Marshall against Shabalov, but the game never really 'exploded' the way fans had hoped

Nevertheless, the hero of the day was Varuzhan Akobian who won an ‘easy’ game against yesterday’s hero Yaroslav Zherebukh. Varuzhan credited his victory to his form and preparation, mentioning Qxc5 is Kramnik’s move against Hou Yifan and expressing disbelief in the way Zherebukh handled the opening.

Right out of the opening, Akobian equalized and Zherebukh started making strange moves such as giving up his dark squared bishop for the knight on f6 when there were no real attack chances on the kingside. He then exchanged queens after he had already undermined his queenside with b4. Akobian played strong and despite a couple of inaccuracies he won, and move to shared first with Wesley So.

Yaroslav Zherebukh vs Varuzhan Akobian

Varuzhan Akobian can't believe what he is seeing

With two out of the three games with white pieces, Akobian should feel confident about his performance, although he is up for a big matchup in round eight with none other than the defending champion, Fabiano Caruana.

In addition to other +1s, we now have Alex Onischuk who won a somewhat easy game after Ray Robson decided to venture with his queen on the black side of the Grunfeld and grabbed a poisoned pawn on a2 which led to the loss of his queen for a rook and some pawns. Still, it was clear Onischuk was going to convert this one comfortably to move to +1, making his round eight game against Nakamura into another big one.

Alexander Onischuk vs Ray Robson

Men's standings after eight rounds

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In the Women section, the match between first and second in the current ranking was a dull encounter where Nazi Paikidze failed to force the pace despite Maggie Fang’s inaccuracies and the game ended in a draw in 30 moves. This gave the chance to Sabina Foisor to take advantage of her white pieces again to beat youngster Emiley Nguyen to share first with Paikidze. Sabina has had a fantastic run with white scoring five wins out of five games!

Nazi Paikidze is en route to a second straight title, but is not without challengers

Irina Krush played a great game against Apruva Virkud but once again almost let her opponent off until Virkud blundered in time pressure in a difficult position and lost. Nemcova beat Yip after the teenage prodigy blundered a piece in one move! The close battle between the two ‘experienced’ Anna ( Sharevich and Zatonskih) ended in a draw after both players turned the table in their favor on different occasions.  The topsy-turvy game between Tatev Abrahamyan and Jennifer Yu ended in a draw where both players had near winning positions but time pressure took its toll and the game ended in a draw eventually.

Round eight will see several important matchups: Akobian facing reigning champion Fabiano Caruana, while Nakamura faces ultra-solid and in-shape Alex Onischuk. World junior champion Jeffrey Xiong faces world No2.  Wesley So.

In the Women section things are a bit more exciting as the two co-leaders face each other: Nazi Paikidze has white against Sabina Foisor while Anna Zatonskih should play against another leading player Maggie Feng with white pieces.

Women's standings after eight rounds

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US Championship pairings/results

US Women's Championship pairings/results

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN All Women's games in PGN The games are being broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 14 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.