US Championship 2007 - Michael Aigner blog
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ROUND-7
Posted by Michael Aigner at Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Whee! Thanks to all the support and good wishes by people around the globe, I finally won a game at the US Championship! It wasn’t my best game, but it certainly beats losing once again. The caged lion has broken out of its
cage and is now prowling around Stillwater, Oklahoma.
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Going into the seventh round, I was determined to play an aggressive game and, so to speak, grab the bull by the horns. The result was a dubious
combination whereby I sacrificed two center pawns (16… d3 and 17… e4) to win an exchange. I would never have played this complex variation if I had not understood that by move 20, white’s knight on d2 has no useful squares. Both
my opponent and I thought black was doing well, but my silicon companion Fritz disagrees strongly, giving white a healthy +1.5 advantage. White’s best try to win is the lengthy variation 25.g5! Kg7 (if Qg7 then 26.Bf4 is strong) 26.Bf4! Qxf4 27.Qxd4+
Qe5 28.Qxe5+ Rxe5 29.Kg1 Bf5 30.Nf6 bxc4 31.bxc4 h6 32.d6! (winning a piece) hxg5 33.d7 Bxd7 34.Nxd7 Ra5 35.Kf2 Rxa2+ 36.Ke3. By move 30, my opponent had merely a few minutes left on the clock (plus the 30 second per move increment) and was able to
put up only minimal resistance.
This round saw lots of thrilling action throughout the entire playing hall. Top board Shabalov-Ehlvest saw a repeat of the sharp poisoned-pawn
variation in the Najdorf that Anand won from both colors (!) in the Corus tournament at Wijk aan Zee earlier this year. Anand successfully played 20… Rd8 as black against Motylev while a week later, Anand-vanWely
saw black sacrifice the exchange with 20… Nc6 but he failed to accomplish anything better than a goose egg in the standings. This time the Estonian GM Jaan Ehlvest played 20… Re8
and wisely declined the piece sacrifice on move 22 before GM Alexander Shabalov forced a repetition of moves with 26.Bc7.
The draw allowed defending champion GM Alexander Onischuk to catch up to share first place at 5.5 out of 7 with a win as black against top rated GM
Hikaru Nakamura. This board 2 game began as a Scotch gambit but quickly turned into a Two Knight’s defense. The critical position
came with the bizarre pawn structure on move 19 when Nakamura played Qa6+ but should have attacked the black pawns with 19.c3 d4 20.Nd4. This defeat eliminates the popular American teenager (everyone either loves him or hates him) from contention
for first place while it propels Onischuk into the driver’s seat.
Two other exciting games were GM Sergey Kudrin’s domination of the English opening essayed by GM Ildar Ibragimov and GM
Eugene Perelshteyn’s refutation of an unusual treatment of the Gruenfeld by GM Varuzhan Akobian. It might surprise the reader that all four of the decisive games mentioned in this article were won by the player of the black pieces! The
fighting chess rules encouraged by the organizers of the Championship have motivated players to try to win with black instead of simply finding the safest route to a draw.
New Yorker IM Jay Bonin (left) and Californian GM Melik Khachiyan don't get to chat every day.
By my quick calculations, five players remain in contention for GM and IM norms. Since the US Championship is officially a FIDE zonal tournament, the requirements for playing opponents from different
countries does not apply.
- IM Irina Krush lost yesterday to GM Boris Gulko and now probably needs two wins and some luck to finish the tournament with a Grandmaster norm.
- Likewise needing a big score in the last two rounds (translation: two wins) are IM Enrico Sevillano and IM-elect Robert Hess, who drew their game in round 7.
- FM Michael Langer defeated his third IM and now has 4.0 out of 7 against 2431 FIDE rated opposition, which places him above the threshold for an IM norm. A win or possibly even a draw today against GM Alexander Stripunsky should clinch his IM norm
with a round to spare. Good luck Michael!
- Youngster FM Ray Robson started out slowly but has caught fire, defeating IM Justin Sarkar yesterday, and can still earn an IM norm with 1.5 or 2.0 in the final two rounds.
I need to end this blog here so that I may prepare for this afternoon’s game as black (again) versus WFM Iryna Zenyuk from New York. Zenyuk has been on a bit of a roll lately, defeating IMs Ron Burnett and Josh Friedel so far this year. She
is particularly strong as white, which means I need to review my homework carefully.
IM Josh Friedel, IM David Pruess and FM Joe Bradford are ready for round 7 to begin.
Please note that Wednesday’s final round will be played at noon local time, which is 1pm ICC server time and 3pm Pacific time. If there is a tie for first place, the players
will square off in a two-game rapid match: first G/20, if still tied G/10 and if still tied then one Armageddon blitz game in which white receives extra time but black has draw odds.
Frank K. Berry US Championship banner.
Previous Posts
- Welcome! Sunday, May 13, 2007
- Arrival Tuesday, May 15, 2007
- Round-1 Wednesday, May 16, 2007
- Round-2 Thursday, May 17, 2007
- Round-3 Friday, May 18, 2007
- Round-5 Sunday, May 20, 2007
- Round-6 Monday, May 21, 2007
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