So Beats Woodward in a Pawn Ending, Leads Caruana by a Point

Wesley So has beaten Andy Woodward in a pawn endgame in round eight of the U.S. Championship. That puts him on 6/8, a full point clear of Fabiano Caruana, and he is the only unbeaten player in the Open section. The two leaders meet in round nine on Monday, October 19, after a rest day, with Caruana holding white.

How So won it

The game was a Ragozin Variation of the Queen’s Gambit Declined. According to ChessBase’s account, So still had 1 hour 25 minutes on his clock after move 18, and he gradually simplified into a pawn ending that looked objectively balanced.

Martina Gerdts’s annotations for ChessBase point to the decisive slip. Instead of 36…Kc6, Woodward needed …h6, and after 37.h4 that move was no longer possible because b5 would win the endgame. Woodward played 37…Kd6, and So answered 38.c5! bxc5 39.b5!, creating a passed pawn.

From there So collected the kingside pawns. It was his fourth win of the tournament, and Chess.com notes his three earlier wins had come in different kinds of endgames. Taken together, that is a pattern of squeezing small edges in simplified positions, which is hard to stop when the opponent is short of ideas.

Why the chasers stalled

Xiong’s game against Ray Robson followed So’s game move for move until the 17th move, according to Chess.com. Xiong seemed to get the better chances, but ChessBase’s annotations show where it slipped.

In the diagram position, 42.f5? gave Black the tempo for …Nc6, and after 43.Ne4+ Ke7 44.Nc3 Nb4 covered d5. The more precise 42.Ne4+ would have created a threat against b6 in time, with a clear advantage. Robson defended accurately and drew.

Caruana could not make headway as Black against Sam Sevian, and that game was drawn in 42 moves. Liang took a quick draw with Abhimanyu Mishra, and Oparin had chances against Levon Aronian that he did not convert, so that game was drawn too. Sam Shankland beat Hans Niemann with white for his second win of the event.

Woodward, Xiong, Liang and Oparin share third on 4.5. With three rounds left, they need So to stumble and then win out themselves. Every draw among the chasers helps the leader, and only the head-to-head with Caruana now stands between So and a comfortable position.

Round nine stakes

If So beats Caruana he leads by two points with two rounds to play, which would be close to decisive. A draw keeps him a point ahead, and only a Caruana win would restore a tie. Caruana has the white pieces, but he needs to take risks that a player trailing by a point would normally have to accept.

Women’s section

Alice Lee and Rachael Li both drew and remain joint leaders on 6/8.

Lee, 17, had a considerable edge from a Catalan against Anna Zatonskih in a heavy-piece endgame, but missed the most effective continuation and Zatonskih held. Li, 16, struggled as Black against Tatev Abrahamyan after ceding the dark squares, but both sides missed chances and it was drawn.

Thalia Cervantes beat defending champion Carissa Yip with Black and is half a point back on 5.5. Yip overlooked a direct mating threat. Jennifer Yu beat Irina Krush, who stays on 5 after having recovered from an opening-round loss.

Nazi Paikidze won the round’s longest game against Anna Sargsyan. She sacrificed her queen from a clearly inferior position, which the engine rates as mistaken, and with 11 seconds left she played 37.Qxf2 rather than the engine’s 37.Qg1.

Sargsyan then spent only two and three minutes on 55…Kh8? and 56…Qb2 after Rf7+ and Rf3, and Paikidze went on to create mating threats. Sargsyan resigned facing mate in four.

Round nine starts at 1 p.m. ET.