[chessmind] Dennis Monokroussos: Round 8 of the US Championships, Round 6 of the 11th North American FIDE Invitational

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Posted by Dennis Monokroussos:
Round 8 of the US Championships, Round 6 of the 11th North American FIDE Invitational
http://chessmind.powerblogs.com/posts/1211342406.shtml


   The US Championship round can be easily summarized: everyone drew.
   That's an exaggeration, but all the games that mattered for the
   leaderboard were drawn: boards 1-6 on the men's side, and the big
   showdown on the women's side between Krush and Zatonskih was drawn as
   well. Going into the last round, therefore, Shulman maintains a full
   point lead over his closest pursuers, while Krush remains half a point
   ahead of Zatonskih. Here are the relevant last-round pairings for both
   tournaments:
   Men's Pairings:
   Friedel (5) - Shulman (6.5)
   Kudrin (5.5) - Perelshteyn (5)
   Onischuk (5.5) - Fedorowicz (4.5)
   Becerra (4.5) - Akobian (5)
   Women's Pairings:
   Krush (7) - Rohonyan (5.5)
   Battsetseg (4.5) - Zatonskih (6.5)
   Tuvshintugs (4.5) - Abrahamyan (6)
   Now for my latest adventure. I was again surprised in the opening, but
   fortunately he went into the opening that I prepared yesterday. He
   chose a good line, too, but his 12th move was simply a blunder. I
   nearly missed the problem with his move as well, but at last realized
   that 12...dxe4 13.fxe4 Bg4 followed by 14...Bf3 and simply ...Bxh2
   wins gobs of material. At some point during my ruminations, he
   realized the problem as well, and just gave up the e-pawn in the hopes
   of reclaiming it later. Fortunately, some tactics on the b-file
   prevented him from re-establishing material equality, and then
   somewhere around move 22 or 23 I came up with the clever trick with
   26...Bb2, winning more material. Ultimately, my extra exchange was
   enough to win, despite my less than beautiful queenside pawn
   structure.
   A note for those of you who have been on the site but only/mainly
   following my games: check out Tate's win over Young. I didn't watch it
   too closely, but it looked exciting all the way.