8th day of the 2024 American championship: Yip wins an 8th consecutive victory, 3 points from Fischer's record

IM Carissa Yip continued her dream run with a victory over WGM Atousa Pourkashiyan to reach 8/8 in the women's championship while GM Fabiano Caruana maintained her half-point lead with 5/7 after one match draw against GM Wesley So in the eighth. round of the 2024 US Chess Championships.

GM Hans Niemann scored the only victory of the round in the open section when his opponent, GM Abhimanyu Mishra, made a mistake in a fundamental round finale with just one minute left on his clock. Niemann then shared second place with 4.5/8 with GM Awonder Liang with 4.5/7.

The women's section saw young IM Alice Lee claim a crucial victory over heavyweight GM Irina Krush to move up to third place with five points, behind IM Gulrukhbegim Tokhirjonova with five and a half points.

After a day of rest, the ninth round of the US Championships will begin on October 21 at 2 p.m. ET/8 p.m. CEST/11:30 p.m. IST.

Ranking of the eighth day: Championship

Ranking of the eighth day: Women's Championship

American Championship

As the championships enter the homestretch, it is interesting to observe the effect of the resulting tension on player behavior. Initially, only the tradition of Liang and So joking and laughing continued before the start of the eighth round. But then we discovered an additional curiosity.

Hans Niemann took a unique approach to his opening in the 8th round of the American Chess Championship: he decided between 1.e4 and 1.d4 by playing rock, paper, scissors with Wesley So! Sometimes a little fun is the best way to handle serious decisions.#USChessChamps#chess… pic.twitter.com/4yvWuykrbY

— Saint Louis Chess Club (@STLChessClub) October 19, 2024

Perhaps buoyed by this tension breaker before the start of the round, Niemann scored a crushing victory over Mishra in a long round finale. The game deserves a good study, as Niemann piled up constant pressure in the queenless midgame and seemed to be on the right path to a deserving victory late in the game. Niemann's technique looked particularly impressive, with 25.Bc1! and 38.Bxc5! worthy of praise. However, he misused his advantage in the late rounds, and the game entered the drama zone when Mishra came under heavy time pressure, with less than a minute on his clock.

GM commentator Yasser Seirawan recalled GM Maurice Ashley's quote: “Time problems make everyone look ridiculous!” »

The troubles of the times make everyone ridiculous!

—Maurice Ashley

Niemann-Mishra was an error-prone endgame that still deserves a good study. Photo: Lennart Ootes/Saint Louis Chess Club.

Commentators have pointed to Ben Underwood's statistical models showing an 80.1% probability for Caruana to win the tournament at the end of the seventh round. Underwood has partnered with the St. Louis Chess Club and the Grand Chess Tour to provide analytical information on tournament broadcasts.

But at this point, the top seed seemed to be in a difficult situation, having avoided the “standard” 11…Ke7 in favor of 11…Qb4?!, but So didn't seem interested in complications either and chose to exchange queens, after which the game ended in a draw after a long fight.

For someone in second place in the tournament standings, Liang's game plan for the day was confusing. Playing on the white side of a French defense, he chose the exchange variation against GM Sam Sevian, exchanged pieces regularly, cooperated with his opponent to repeat the position three times, and signed the peace treaty in just 27 shots. He even finished with more time on the clock than at the start of the round.

Even more curious is that Liang is scheduled to face heavyweights Caruana, So and Dominguez in his remaining three matches in the tournament.

The Dominguez Perez-Grigoriy Oparin and Levon Aronian-Ray Robson encounters were well-contested draws where neither player was able to claim a significant advantage to push for a victory during the match.

General manager Sam Shankland took advantage of his free day by joining general manager Joshua Friedel for live commentary on site and appeared to contribute to the show with his typical energy.

Sam Shankland joins the commentators on his day off! For the spectators of Saint Louis! Follow round-by-round tournament play with our resident grandmaster, Josh Friedel, who analyzes games in this exciting round-robin format from 2:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. daily. Live… pic.twitter.com/Q6tTw7gQPv

— Saint Louis Chess Club (@STLChessClub) October 19, 2024

Niemann will have a bye on Monday, in the ninth round.

United States Women's Championship

Unsurprisingly, Underwood's models predicted a 98.5% chance of Yip winning the women's event, but at this point it only remains to be seen whether the young woman can reach 11/11 to tie the record from general manager Bobby Fischer and win the special prize of $64,000. .

Using his favorite modern defense with black, Yip unleashed the Tiger's modern defense and showed his preparation by playing with confidence and speed throughout the opening phase. This provided a good basis to lead the match, as Pourkashiyan didn't seem to react well in the opening phase and was getting deeper and deeper into the pressure of the clock.

Yip's fast play from the early stages drew praise from general commentator Cristian Chirila: “This has been her strategy throughout the tournament. She plays very fast. She puts a lot of pressure on her opponents' clock.”

This has been his strategy throughout the tournament. She plays very fast. She puts a lot of pressure on her opponents' clock.

—Cristian Chirila

Speaking after the match, Yip dubbed his result “the Gukesh era”, referring to the Indian world championship contender's score at the Chennai 2022 Olympiad. Yip's exploits on the board are rightly recognized by all sort of “just fans” of the game.

Just a fan of good chess! Go get them! https://t.co/cflWouzaj3

– Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) October 20, 2024

Yip is expected to face Megan Lee, IM Anna Zatonskih and Alice Lee in the final three matches of the tournament.

Alice Lee climbed the rankings with a crucial victory over Krush in a sword fight typical of an Indian defense of the king.

Alice Lee scored a crucial victory against Krush in the eighth round. Photo: Lennart Ootes/Saint Louis Chess Club.

WGM Tatev Abrahamyan scored against FM Rose Atwell in an irregular match, while -Jennifer Yu, Nazi Paikidze-Thalia Cervantes and Megan Lee-Zatonskih were all hard-fought draws. The last one featured a rook versus bishop fight that lasted 130 moves.

Megan Lee vs. Zatonskih was a long 130-shot draw with a rook versus bishop finish. Photo: Lennart Ootes/Saint Louis Chess Club.

How to watch?

The 2024 US Chess Championship is a classic invitational event that determines the US Chess Champion. The 2024 United States Women's Championship will take place simultaneously. Both events begin October 11 and have the same format: a 12-player, 11-round tournament with a prize pool of $250,000 for the U.S. Championship and $152,000 for the U.S. Women's Championship.

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