2019-06-01_Games_World_of_Puzzles

24 GAMES WORLD^ OF PUZZLES | june 2019

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he United States Chess Championship and Women’s Chess Championship took place in March at the Saint
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players in the country.
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open to women and so is often referred to as the Open tournament, but no women had a high enough rating to
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The tournament was broadcast live at the website uschesschamps.com[MXLGSQQIRXEVMIWF]JSYVXMQI97
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A running computer analysis was shown for all games, and viewers could share comments in a Twitter feed.
The top five finishers in the Championship Tournament and the top two finishers in the Women’s Tournament
qualified for berths in the World Cup tournament to be held later this year. The final standings are shown on page 25.
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by playing the risky Leningrad variation of the Dutch Defense, which creates an unbalanced position at the cost of
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White in the games in which it has been played. White’s 23. Neg2 was not a particularly useful move, and Nakamura
gradually gained the upper hand and won. White’s last chance to save the game may have been to sacrifice the
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indefensible. The final position is shown in Diagram 2, when the Black g pawn cannot be stopped from promoting.
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half a point behind. At this point no other player was close enough to finish first. Yu had Black, a slight disadvantage,
but won a brilliant game to clinch the title with a round to spare. She went on to win her final round game as well.
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97'ǤȨǙǙ'ǤȳǟǜǣǝǞǙǤǣǜ6ǝǗǞȰ
;ǤǣǘȨJeffery Xiong
&Ǡȳȱǡ Hikaru Nakamura
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2019 97;ǝǟȨǞƅǙ'ǤȨǙǙ'ǤȳǟǜǣǝǞǙǤǣǜ6ǝǗǞȰ

;ǤǣǘȨ Anna Zatonskih

&ǠȳȱǡJennifer Yu

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