Samuel Shankland is the new US Champion! ⎸2018 US Championship, Final Round

Samuel Shankland won the title in clear 1st place after three very convincing consecutive victories against formidable opponents.

Samuel Shankland (2671) vs Awonder Liang (2552), Caro-Kann Defense B13, Exchange Variation
2018 US Chess Championship, Round 11, St. Louis, 04/29/18

For detailed theory of the Echange Caro-Kann watch this video: https://youtu.be/SMIhNIXoMNk

Samuel Shankland managed to come ahead of the great three – Nakamura, So, and Caruana, and win the US Chess Championship! After having drawn the first couple of games, he played the final 9 rounds almost perfectly. He only drew the great three and in all the other games he almost gave his opponents no chance. In the final part of the tournament, him and Caruana were closely tied for 1st (with no one else being even close) and the winner wasn’t decided until the final round. Caruana was trailing only half a point behind and all he needed was one slipup by Samuel. That never happened!

Shankland won the last three games convincingly and he became the champion without having to worry about tie-breaks.

In this game he faced Awonder Liang with white. Liang went for the Caro-Kann and Shankland chose the most passive variation – the Exchange! This is considered to be too passive for white generally, but he managed to put on so much pressure that Liang was overwhelmed and inferior very early on! A great victory by the new US Champion!

Final standings:

Samuel Shankland 8.5/11
Fabiano Caruana 8/11
Wesley So 6.5/11
Aleksandr Lenderman 5.5/11
Hikaru Nakamura 5.5/11
Jeffery Xiong 5/10
Zviad Izoria 5/11
Ray Robson 4.5/10
Awonder Liang 4.5/11
Yaroslav Zherebukh 4.5/11
Varuzhan Eduardovich Akobian 4.5/11
Alexander Onischuk 3/11

Game moves:

1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 cxd5 4.Bd3 Nc6 5.c3 Nf6 6.Bf4 Bg4 7.Qb3
e5 8.h3 exf4 9.hxg4 Qe7+ 10.Kf1 O-O-O 11.Nd2 g6 12.Re1 Qc7
13.g5 Nh5 14.Be2 Ng7 15.Ngf3 Ne6 16.Bb5 Bg7 17.Qa4 Rd6 18.Nb3
b6 19.Nc1 Nb8 20.Nd3 Kb7 21.Nb4 Qd8 22.Ne5 Qc7 23.Qb3 Rhd8
24.Rxh7 a6 25.Bd3 Ka7 26.Qa4 a5 27.Bb5 Kb7 28.Nbd3 Rg8 29.Nf3
Rh8 30.Rxh8 Bxh8 31.a3 Nc6 32.Bxc6+ Rxc6 33.Nde5 Bxe5 34.Nxe5
Rd6 35.Qe8 Rd8 36.Qxf7 Nxg5 37.Qxc7+ Kxc7 38.Nxg6 f3 39.Nf4
Kc6 40.gxf3 Nxf3 41.Re6+ Kb5 42.Ke2 Ng1+ 43.Kd3 1-0

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