Press release by the Saint Louis Chess Club
By IM Kostya Kavutskiy
Despite starting off with a loss in the first game of the second day, GM Joel Benjamin managed to bounce back with two straight wins to take the sole lead with 4.5/6 going into the final day tomorrow. Trailing Benjamin by half a point is the previous co-leader GM Igor Novikov, who drew all three games today; while GM Gregory Kaidanov, GM Patrick Wolff, and GM Dmitry Gurevich are still within range with an even score after six rounds.
The first round of the day saw Benjamin losing a tough endgame to GM Dmitry Gurevich, who made the most out of an outside passed pawn to shake up the standings of the event:
GM Gurevich’s a-pawn was too much for Black’s knights to handle.
Novikov drew with GM Alexander Goldin to take the clear lead while GM Alexander Shabalov defeated GM Larry Christiansen to notch his first win of the event, thanks to a strong kingside pawn storm:
After 27.f6!, with idea 27...g6 28.e6! Nxe6 29.Rxe6! fxe6 30.f7+, with a mating attack.
Select an entry from the list to switch between games
In the fifth round Benjamin was able to bounce back, winning a very nice technical endgame of his own against GM Patrick Wolff:
After 46.Nxa7!, with idea 46...Bxa7 47.b6 where Black can’t play Bb8 in view of 48.b7#!
Once again Novikov drew, while Christiansen was able to bounce back with a win over GM Alexander Goldin, ending with a trademark ‘LarryC’ attack:
After 37.Qa7!, which finished the game as Black has no defense to the threat of Rg7+!
In the final round of the day, Benjamin managed to win another endgame, this time against GM Alex Yermolinsky, who squandered a big advantage out of the opening:
Three-time U.S. Champion GM Joel Benjamin scored two valuable points in the endgame today.
Goldin and Wolff bounced back with wins as well, leading to a very tight-knit group in the standings, with all 10 players still in contention for at least third place
Rounds 7-9 of the 2020 U.S. Senior Championship will take place tomorrow, October 19, with live coverage from WGM Jennifer Shahade, GM Yasser Seirawan, and GM Maurice Ashley starting at 12:50 PM CDT on USChessChamps.com, YouTube, and Twitch.
