Niemann Blunder Gives Caruana 1-Point Lead; Yip, Tokhirjonova Ahead By 2
GM Fabiano Caruana increased his lead to a point, even while he let GM Sam Shankland off the hook in the eighth round of the 2023 U.S. Championship. In the U.S. Women's Championship, IM Carissa Yip and WGM Gulrukhbegim Tokhirjonova continued their two-horse race for the title by extending their winning streak to four games, surging jointly ahead of their nearest rivals by a full two points.
Fatigue seemed to be setting in for the players of both sections, resulting in many tactical mistakes and uneven play, with the most unfortunate of them coming from GM Hans Niemann, who blundered his queen to GM Ray Robson in a slightly worse position.
GM Abhimanyu Mishra played almost flawless positional chess, steadily outplaying GM Sam Sevian, which is our Game of the Day.
Round nine starts on October 15 at 2:30 p.m. ET/20:30 CEST/12:00 a.m. IST after a rest day on October 14.
See what happened
You can follow the games from the US Championships on our Events Pages: Women | Open.
As with any round-robin tournament with strong players all around, we've begun to see glimpses of fatigue from the contestants in the final stretch. The clearest indicators of tiredness are tactical mishaps and low-energy plays, which were witnessed in both sections of the tournament in the eighth round.
Uneven Play
When the position is still tense, with accurate moves still expected from both sides, is where we can identify uneven or hesitant play easily. One of the sides—or both sides—find it difficult to come up with concrete moves, play tentative moves, and the assessment of the position gets altered. Fatigue makes a player not realize the importance of a tempo or the pressure, and seemingly make moves that ultimately cost them while not serving any clear purpose.
After obtaining a clear advantage, tentative play saw even the heavyweight Caruana slipping up from converting an advantageous position into a win.
After four wins in a row in the previous rounds, young IM-elect Alice Lee seemed to be on course for another, building up an impressive position with the black pieces.
The day of the eighth round—13th October—also happened to be Lee's birthday, and along with her, other people had reasons to celebrate the occasion too. In the following instance, the guaranteed (free) slice of the birthday cake.
Woohoo, more 🎂 available at the #USChessChamps today! Happy birthday Alice! https://t.co/oiROnDZ9bT
— Chris Bird (@ChrisBirdIA) October 13, 2023
In a game between two players who are at the bottom of the points table, an equal position slid into a decisive one in no time at all.
Tokhirjonova seemed to be applying steady pressure to her opponent, but the way White collapsed in an instant was surprising.
Tactical Mishaps
The most glaring tactical mistakes were witnessed in the games of Niemann, GM Irina Krush, and her opponent WGM Jennifer Yu. Niemann had played a six-hour battle in the previous round against GM Andrew Tang, and this is probably the logical explanation for the disaster in the eighth round.
The game between Krush and Yu was in favor of Krush for a long time, but the tide turned after the first time control.
U.S. Championship
By failing to convert his advantage, Caruana seemed to miss an opportunity to further increase his lead over the field. But by hanging his queen against Robson, Niemann helped Caruana's lead to increase to a full-point margin anyway.
Tang vs. GM Wesley So proved to be an absorbing encounter from the word go, centering on White's attempts to trap the black queen, which had strayed into enemy territory. Both the players magnificently rose to the occasion and played a memorable game from a topical variation of the London system. It was a high-quality encounter, where both played flawlessly for a long stretch of moves.
Mishra showed remarkable maturity in outplaying Sevian in a well-conducted strategic game, which is our Game of the Day, annotated by GM Dejan Bojkov.
U.S. Championship | All Games Round 8
Round 8 Standings
U.S. Women's Championship
After Tokhirjonova's fluent win over IM Anna Zatonskih and Lee's draw against FM Ruiyang Yan, Yip scored a topsy-turvy win against WGM Atousa Pourkashiyan to remain joint leader. The game was a nail-biter, with fortune favoring both players in turn during the game.
A game with too many twists and turns, and an annotator's nightmare!
After the game, when Yip appeared on the live commentary, GM loan-Cristian Chirila showed her an interesting perspective.
Incredibly, both the joint leaders have followed an identical scoring path all along the tournament so far. An excited Yip quipped, "I think we both are in really good form... It's still anyone's tournament!"
It's still anyone's tournament!
—Carissa Yip
U.S. Women's Championship | All Games Round 8
Round 8 Women's Standings
The 2023 U.S. Chess Championship is an invitational classical event that determines the chess champion of the United States. The 2022 U.S. Women's Championship is being held concurrently. Both events start on October 5 and have the same format: a 12-player, 11-round tournament with a $250,000 prize fund for the U.S. Championship and $152,000 for the U.S. Women’s Championship.
Previous Coverage:
- Winning Streaks Galore: Yip, Tokhirjonova, Lee Unstoppable
- Yip, Tokhirjonova Grow Lead With 4 Victories
- Nearly All Decisive Day: Caruana Pulls Off Hat Trick, Niemann Defeats Aronian
- Caruana Sole Leader After Long Grinding Win
- Mishra In Sole Lead, Becomes World's Youngest 2600+ Player
- On The Verge Of Blundering While Running Out Of Time, Niemann Defeats Leader
- Paikidze, Sevian Start As Sole Leaders
