Wesley So and Alice Lee both earned a spot in the American Cup finals after emerging victorious in their Elimination matches today, knocking out Levon Aronian and N. Paikidze to advance to the American Cup finals.
Next they will both face the top seeds and winners of the Champions Bracket, Hikaru Nakamura and Irina Krush, in a rematch of their earlier encounters.
The time control for the event is 90 minutes plus 30 seconds increment for all games in the Champions Bracket, with a rapid time control of 25+10 for the Elimination Bracket and a 10+5 time control for all playoff matches.
In this unique double-elimination format, the losers of each match will get relegated to the Elimination Bracket, where they will get a second chance to continue the tournament.
Day 7 recap by IM Kostya Kavutskiy
OPEN SECTION – ELIMINATION BRACKET
SO – ARONIAN | 2.5-1.5
The first set of rapid games were drawn, with So missing huge chances to win in Game 1, as he had a decisive advantage in the middlegame, then could have won in the resulting rook endgame..
This took the players to a playoffโin the first game Aronian went for the Berlin Endgame and played extremely aggressively out of the gate, first sacrificing multiple pawns, then an exchange, and even a full rook in order to attack So’s king. But his bluff was called, as Wesley accepted the material and survived the onslaught, eventually forcing Aronian to resign as his initiative ran out.
The second game featured yet another Modern Defense, a common choice for players in the event when needing to bounce back. But So controlled the situation well, not allowing Aronian any serious counterplay while making several trades. There was only so much Levon could do as Wesley eventually forced a dead drawn endgame, sealing the match.
WOMENโS SECTION – ELIMINATION BRACKET
LEE – PAIKIDZE | 3-1
The first Elimination game ended abruptly as Paikidze overlooked a pin against her king and essentially blundered the game away in one move. But she managed to win on-demand in the second game, after launching a successful pawn storm attack against Lee’s king.
In the playoff, despite getting a much worse position out of the opening Alice won the first game as Black, after Paikidze sacrificed her queen for a rook and minor piece but ended up with too weak a king. In the second game Lee would just need a draw to advance, but she managed to reach a fantastic endgame which she simply ended up converting, winning the match.
The 2023 American Cup continues Friday, March 24 with tournament action live starting at 1:20PM CT with Grandmaster commentators Yasser Seirawan, Cristian Chirila, and IM Jovanka Houska on uschesschamps.com and on the Saint Louis Chess Clubโs YouTube and Twitch.tv channels.
Photo Courtesy of Saint Louis Chess Club, Bryan Adams