Chess - The Scotsman 28/05/12

How does white win?

Two of the fiercest rivals met recently in what was claimed to be the strongest US Championship in history, as 12 of America’s top grandmasters fought it out in St Louis. Two of the top guns have been listed in the World’s Top 10 within the past year: Gata Kamsky, of New York, and Hikaru Nakamura, of St Louis.

Kamsky, who first won this event as a teenager in 1991, had an almost eight-year self-imposed retirement from the game, yet made a comeback to prevail again in 2010 and defended it successfully last year. Nakamura, who broke just about all Bobby Fischer’s US age-records, apart from being the youngest ever champion, also won the title as a teenager and is presently rated No 6 in the world.

It certainly proved a two horse race almost till the end – but Nakamura’s win over Kamsky in the penultimate round more or less decided all the marbles, and he went on to take his third title with an undefeated score of 8.5/11, a full point ahead of Kamsky.

Both players convincingly defeated former world title Candidate and four-time champion Yasser Seirawan. While Nakamura defeated him in the last round to secure the title and the $40,000 first prize, Kamsky’s very attractive win ably demonstrated the level of preparedness needed for big matchplay events.

This extremely sharp line of the Caro-Kann Defence had been worked out by Kamsky and his team for his appearance in last year’s Candidates matches, but instead Seirawan fell victim to his homework.

G Kamsky - Y Seirawan

US Championship, (9)

Caro-Kann Defence

1 e4 c6 2 d4 d5 3 Nc3 dxe4 4 Nxe4 Bf5 5 Ng3 Bg6 6 h4 h6 7 Nf3 Nd7 8 h5 Bh7 9 Bd3 Bxd3 10 Qxd3 e6 11 Bd2 Ngf6 12 0–0–0 Be7 13 Ne4 Nxe4 14 Qxe4 Nf6 15 Qd3 0–0 16 Kb1 c5 17 g4 Nxg4 18 Qe2 Kh8 19 Rhg1 Nf6 20 dxc5 Qc7 21 Ne5 Bxc5 22 Bxh6! gxh6 23 Rd7 Qxd7 24 Nxd7 Nxd7 25 Qd2 Kh7 26 b4 Rad8 27 bxc5 Nf6 28 Qf4 Ne8 29 Qe4+ Kh8 30 Qxb7 Ng7 31 Qxa7 Rc8 32 Rd1 Nf5 33 Rd7 Kg7 34 a4 Kf6 35 a5 1–0

John Henderson