The action continues, with Varuzhan Akobian and Alexander Onischuk scoring for this second round of the US Chess Championship 2017, joining Wesley So and Hikaru Nakamura at the top of the ranking.
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Replay all Round 2 games below:[replay]
The US Chess Championships 2017 is an 11-round, 12-player tournament, among the very strong members of the USCF. This happens in St. Louis from 29 March to 10 April 2017.
In the opening round, we saw the top seed, Wesley So, slated against the last seed, Alexander Shabalov. So won that game. Another decisive game in Round 1 was the game of Hikaru Nakamura, playing as black, winning against Ray Robson.
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GM Wesley So is now officially the No. 2 chess player in the world, in the March 2017 FIDE Ratings list, up one notch from last month’s.
Moreover, it should be noted that this is the first time that there are 5 2800+ players in the list, after MVL made a comeback to the 2800-club.
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[tactics_fen code=”r1k2bnr/2p1p1pp/p1P1b3/4N3/3Q4/4P3/PP1NKP1P/q7 w – – 0 1″ result=”mate in six”]
[solution]
Dubbed as the World’s Strongest Chess Tournament, Altibox Norway Chess 2017, which is scheduled to happen June 5 to 17 this year, was able to gather to play the current (February 2017) top 10 players in the world:
From its website:
Eight of the top ten players are set to participate in the 2017 edition of the Grand Chess Tour. One rapid and blitz event was added to the events line-up from last year, i.e., the Saint Louis Rapid, which should follow soon after the Sinquefield Cup.
It’s a great year ahead, indeed, for chess fans for 2017.
2017 Grand Chess Tour Schedule
Hikaru Nakamura and Yu Yangyi won their respective games in the final Round 10 of Tradewise Gibraltar Masters 2017, to get a shot at the title when David Antón Guijarro drew his game against Michael Adams.
At the end of Round 10, Guijarro, Nakamura, and Yu were tied, thus necessitated a playoff:
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GM David Anton Guijarro
David Anton Guijarro beats Veselin Topalov in the penultimate Round 9 of Tradewise Gibraltar Masters 2017 ([replay]) to take the solo lead with 1 round to go. He might only be the 24th seed (ELO 2650) coming into this tournament, but he finds himself ahead of household names in the chess world such as Hikaru Nakamura, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Michael Adams, Boris Gelfand, and especially Fabiano Caruana.
Caruana is having a hard time in this tournament after he lost to Nigel Short in the 6th round and drew with several lower rated players in earlier rounds before that, thus he’s at No. 12 in the ranking after Round 9. He’s currently at 3rd place in the live ratings with 2819.7. He’s set to face Varuzhan Akobian in the final round.
Following his outstanding performance in Tata Steel Masters 2017, Wesley So is now the world’s number 3 in the official FIDE Ratings List, with a rating of 2822.
Despite the Live Ratings indicating So as now No. 2 after Fabiano Caruana dropped some ELO points to today’s 2820, Caruana’s sub-optimal performance from Gibraltar are not yet in for the official tally.
Levon Aronian gained some ELO points as well from Tata Steel, to settle for 7th to 8th place, with a rating of 2785.
This is Wesley So‘s 56th game without a loss. His last loss was in Round 4 of Bilbao Masters Final 2016 against the World Champion, Magnus Carlsen, where he finished fourth. Moreover, this is his third super-tournament title in a row, following the Sinquefield Cup and London Chess Classic.
Wesley So, playing as black, won his final round game against Ian Nepomniachtchi. This win enabled So to secure the Tata Steel Masters 2017 title, his first for Tata Steel, with a clear point ahead of the runner-up, Magnus Carlsen.
Replay Round 13 games below:[replay]
This win also enabled So to rank second in the Live Ratings, after Fabiano Caruana lost to Nigel Short in Round 6 in Gibraltar, just 16 ELO points behind the World Champion:
