The American Cup Day 1: Caruana, Lee, Tokhirjonova Start With Double Wins

Day one of the 2024 American Cup saw a whopping 13 decisive games across the Open and Women’s tournaments in St. Louis on Tuesday.

GM Fabiano Caruana got off to a 2-0 start against GM Grigoriy Oparin, while GM Wesley So is the only other player to lead in the Open section, 1.5-0.5 against GM Sam Shankland.

In the Women’s, all eight games were decisive (!), with IM Alice Lee and WGM Gulrukhbegim Tokhirjonova taking 2-0 leads against, respectively, WGM Tatev Abrahamyan and FM Jennifer Yu.

Each quarterfinal match will conclude after two more games on day two with possible tiebreaks. They take place on Wednesday, March 13, 2024, at 2 p.m. ET/19:00 CET/11:30 p.m. IST.

Double-Elimination: You Only Live Twice

Double-elimination is back in St. Louis in what’s now the third edition of the American Cup. Similarly to Chess.com’s Champions Chess Tour, players start the tournament with “two lives,” meaning they need to lose two matches to be eliminated.

In the two tournaments—Open and Women’s—there will also be two brackets, the Champions Bracket and the Elimination Bracket (that players enter when they lose a match). So far, nobody’s in the Elimination Bracket; the first matches only conclude on Wednesday.

Matches consist of both classical and rapid time controls:

• In the Champions Bracket, each match is four games, two classical (90+30) and two rapid (15+10)
• In the Elimination Bracket, each match is four rapid games (15+10)

Like before, no draw offers are allowed at any point in the game.

But here’s a change: last year, two classical games were followed by rapid games to break a tie. This year, one rapid game is played right after each classical game, even if there’s a decisive result. Unlike other events that mix classical and speed chess, wins in classical and rapid have the same value: one point. 

This set the stage for plenty of decisive games on the tournament’s very first day.

Open: Caruana Wins Both Games, So Sacrifices Exchange in the Rapid

The 2023 champion, GM Hikaru Nakamura, isn’t present this year, presumably to prepare for the Candidates Tournament that’s less than a month away. The champion of the 2022 tournament is Caruana, and although he’s also playing in the Candidates, it didn’t stop him from joining. He could not have started better, being the only player in the Open tournament to win both games.

Caruana had to play against his second, Oparin, in the very first round. Curiously, it was their first classical encounter. He said: “We worked together quite a lot, so it’s really unusual to play against him and maybe it feels kind of weird for both of us.” They’ve played before, but only in rapid or blitz; Caruana won both of their previous encounters.

It’s really unusual to play against him and maybe it feels kind of weird for both of us.

—Fabiano Caruana

Move 19 was critical in the classical game, and computer analysis showed that 19…Nxe6, with the idea of sacrificing a piece with …Ng5!! and …Nxh3, would have maintained “equality,” whatever that means in such a dynamic context.

How should Black recapture on e6? There’s just one good answer, and it requires deep, deep calculation!

Oparin chose the wrong path and Caruana has a huge attack in the game!https://t.co/WNjMuz0FuM#AmericanCup pic.twitter.com/MszSHQp6oi

— chess24 (@chess24com) March 12, 2024

Instead, 19…Rxe6? allowed a vicious attack, which Caruana completed with a 98.1 percent accuracy score for the whole game. GM Rafael Leitao analyzes the full Game of the Day below.

In another Queen’s Gambit Declined, Caruana won with the black pieces in the rapid game. With a two-point start, he needs just one draw out of two games on Wednesday to clinch the match.

So was the only other player to gain a lead on day one. “I didn’t expect him to play the Grunfeld,” he said after being unable to make progress with White in the first game. “A draw was a fair result, but I’m quite unhappy with how it went.”

I didn’t expect him to play the Grunfeld.

—Wesley So

Nevertheless, he managed to win from the black side of the Berlin Defense in the rapid game—with the sledgehammer 27…Rxa3! exchange sacrifice. In fact, the position was still equal, but Shankland had to find the study-like 41.Ke3!! to save it.

The classical game between GM Leinier Dominguez and GM Ray Robson was the deepest theoretical battle of the day, taking 21 moves for the novelty to appear on the board in a Sicilian Najdorf.

In general, they played a perfect game until move 32, and as it happens in such an opening, a single mistake can cost the game. After 32…Ra4? 33.a3!, Black was left without counterplay, and Dominguez nicely gave away his queen in the conversion phase:

After this tremendous victory by Dominguez, however, Robson evened the score in the rapid game after his opponent sacrificed a pawn for insufficient compensation. Ultimately, Dominguez even lost on time, though his position was lost.

GM Levon Aronian vs. GM Sam Sevian hardly got off the ground, with two draws. The first game reached a rook endgame by move 19 and a threefold repetition almost 20 moves after that. Sevian got into trouble with White in game two and acquiesced to a draw by repetition on move 25. 

The same matchups will continue on day two, and four players will find themselves in the Elimination Bracket before Thursday. We will see another classical game followed by rapid with a blitz tiebreak to follow if needed.

Women’s: Zero Draws Out Of Eight Games

The biggest story of the Women’s, at first, looked like it was going to be FM Zoey Tang‘s victory against GM Irina Krush. Krush has won both editions of the Women’s tournament since the first one in 2022 and will be looking to score the hat trick this year.

Losing the very first game against the lowest-rated player in the tournament must have been a cold shower.

Grabbing a pawn with 17.Nxa4??, White overlooked a crushing reply. Could you defeat the eight-time U.S. women’s champion from here? Black to move. 

But Krush buckled down, played the King’s Indian Defense in game two, and evened the score after a mistake by her opponent in the endgame.

Lee’s reached the final twice, against Krush, but has yet to win this tournament. Her 2-0 victory on Tuesday against Abrahamyan, however, sends a strong message: “This might be my year.”

She won a rook endgame in the first one, but the second was a defensive spectacle. She grabbed one, two, three pawns, and White didn’t have an attack to show for it.

Tokhirjonova and Yu met last in the U.S. Championships, and the latter won on demand with the black pieces in the very last round. The Uzbek WGM served a cold plate of revenge on Tuesday, winning both games.

Game one was a 26-move miniature. Tokhirjonova herself wasn’t expecting it to be so quick: “I expected a long game; that’s why I was surprised.”

I expected a long game; that’s why I was surprised. 

—Gulrukhbegim Tokhirjonova

“She wanted to be aggressive and it didn’t work out because she was not developed,” Tokhirjonova said after the game. “She missed just [17].a5 Qb5 and takes [19.]Nd4.” 

Like Krush, IM Nazi Paikidze scored a nice rebound against IM Anna Zatonskih after losing the first game. The checkmate in the final position must have been as satisfying to play as it is to look at.

Like the Open section, just four players will survive in the Champions Bracket by the end of Wednesday. Judging by the uncompromising play on day one, will we even get one draw on day two?