Shankland Victorious Again; Wins American Continental
There's no stopping Sam Shankland, who scored his third tournament victory in a row yesterday at the American Continental Championship in Montevideo, Uruguay.
Shankland scored 9/11, and won 10 more Elo points to reach a 2727 rating. He qualified for the 2019 World Cup together with GMs Diego Flores, Jorge Cori and Emilio Cordova.
Like the European Championship, the American Continental is an 11-round Swiss that is first a way for players to qualify for the FIDE World Cup. But whereas 23 players qualified from the much-bigger tournament in Europe (and another 23 next year), there were only four places up for grabs in Montevideo, and four more next year.
The tournament was held June 1-10 (with a double round on June 3) in the Regency Way hotel in Montevideo. Players from Uruguay (60), Brazil (32), Argentina (28), Chile (14), USA (14), Peru (9), Paraguay (3), Bolivia (2), Canada (2), Aruba (1), Colombia (1) and Cuba (1) participated, including 24 grandmasters.
Shankland continued in the great form that he showed at the U.S. championship and the Capablanca Memorial, winning the tournament alone with 9/11 and a 2774 performance rating. He drew four games and won seven, including the last two rounds.
Won the American Continental with 9.0/11. 2019 World Cup ticket punched, 3 tournament wins in a row, 60 classical games without a loss, 2727 live. Will come back to earth some day, but for now, I'm a happy guy!
— Sam Shankland (@GMShanky) June 10, 2018
Congrats to Sam "triple 27" Shankland (@GMShanky): after winning the American Continental he is now world #27 with a 2727 live rating! https://t.co/TZmzmPraJe
— ChesscomNews (@ChesscomNews) June 10, 2018
In the penultimate round, Shankland beat his compatriot Jeffery Xiong as Black in a 6.h3 Najdorf. He played it as a Dragon, including an exchange sacrifice on c3. Despite the fact that White didn't need to spoil his structure, the sac was obvious as the light-squared bishop became a monster. (This author got to play the same theme back in 2004 in a game mentioned here.)
The game in the last round was similar: a nice, but not too difficult combination decided the game in Shankland's favor. Obviously that was a wonderful way to finish another successful tournament, although it was only clear after Flores was held to a draw in the final round that Shankland finished clear first.
2018 American Continental | Final Standings (Top 20)
| Rk. | SNo | Fed | Title | Name | RtgI | Pts. | TB1 | TB2 | TB3 | TB4 | TB5 | rtg+/- |
| 1 | 1 | GM | Shankland Samuel | 2717 | 9 | 0 | 7 | 5 | 2552 | 75,5 | 10,2 | |
| 2 | 6 | GM | Flores Diego | 2614 | 8,5 | 0 | 7 | 6 | 2492 | 72,5 | 11,3 | |
| 3 | 27 | IM | Salinas Herrera Pablo | 2463 | 8 | 0 | 7 | 6 | 2296 | 64 | 0,5 | |
| 4 | 4 | GM | Mareco Sandro | 2643 | 8 | 0 | 6 | 6 | 2459 | 69 | 0,4 | |
| 5 | 36 | IM | Escalante Ramirez Brian Sebasti | 2422 | 8 | 0 | 6 | 6 | 2374 | 64,5 | 15,5 | |
| 6 | 2 | GM | Cori Jorge | 2659 | 8 | 0 | 6 | 5 | 2536 | 73,5 | 4,7 | |
| 7 | 26 | IM | Cori Quispe Kevin Joel | 2468 | 8 | 0 | 6 | 5 | 2443 | 67 | 19 | |
| 8 | 22 | GM | Hungaski Robert | 2510 | 8 | 0 | 5 | 6 | 2467 | 69 | 15,8 | |
| 9 | 5 | GM | Cordova Emilio | 2621 | 8 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 2479 | 74,5 | 2,5 | |
| 10 | 31 | IM | Vazquez Guillermo | 2436 | 7,5 | 0 | 7 | 5 | 2359 | 64,5 | 7,3 | |
| 11 | 30 | IM | Sosa Tomas | 2453 | 7,5 | 0 | 6 | 6 | 2435 | 71 | 13,7 | |
| 12 | 16 | GM | El Debs Felipe De Cresce | 2537 | 7,5 | 0 | 6 | 6 | 2408 | 67 | 1,1 | |
| 13 | 15 | GM | Martinez Alcantara Jose Eduardo | 2539 | 7,5 | 0 | 6 | 5 | 2465 | 70 | 6,2 | |
| 14 | 7 | GM | Delgado Ramirez Neuris | 2613 | 7,5 | 0 | 6 | 5 | 2463 | 75 | -0,9 | |
| 15 | 8 | GM | Cruz Cristhian | 2576 | 7,5 | 0 | 6 | 5 | 2411 | 67 | -5 | |
| 16 | 3 | GM | Xiong Jeffery | 2656 | 7,5 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 2528 | 71,5 | -0,9 | |
| 17 | 11 | GM | Erenburg Sergey | 2563 | 7,5 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 2499 | 72 | 7,7 | |
| 18 | 9 | GM | Liang Awonder | 2571 | 7,5 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 2428 | 72 | -2,5 | |
| 19 | 17 | IM | Di Berardino Diego Rafael | 2525 | 7,5 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 2417 | 70 | 2,3 | |
| 20 | 10 | GM | Pichot Alan | 2564 | 7,5 | 0 | 4 | 6 | 2445 | 70 | 0,2 |
(Full final standings here.)
Places 1-3: Shankland, Flores, Salinas. | | Photo: Federación Uruguaya De Ajedrez/Facebook.
Shankland and Flores qualified directly for the World Cup next year in Khanty-Mansiysk. Peruvian GMs Cori and Cordova took the other two spots in a rapid playoff held among all players finishing on eight points.
Games via TWIC.
Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
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