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Top Americans Shine Abroad

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National News

Top Americans Shine Abroad

In the United States, Hikaru Nakamura and Alexander Onischuk are well-known as two of the top players in the country. Now they are proving to everyone else that they can play with the best in the world.

Nakamura, fresh off his victory in the US Championships and his match win over Sergey Karjakin, currently sits a half-point off the lead after 7 rounds at the Gibtele.com Masters International, a swiss event with 121 players. Several top players are competing in Gibraltar; Lev Aronian and Emil Sutovsky are among the four players tied for the lead, while Alexei Shirov and Alexey Dreev are in the group a half-point behind the leaders with Nakamura, at 5 points. With just one round to go, Nakamura still has an outside chance of taking a share of first place; we will report the final results in next week's newsletter.

Although Alexander Onischuk's competition may not have been quite as difficult as Nakamura's, it came in one of the world's most prestigious tournaments: the Corus Chess Tournament in Wijk aan Zee. Onischuk scored 7.5/13 to finished in a 5th-place tie in the B group, the second of three strong sections at the tournament. Onischuk rebounded from a rocky start to finish ahead of notable names like Magnus Carlsen, Antoaneta Stefanova and Alexandra Kosteniuk. The section was won by Sergey Karjakin; you can find complete coverage of this event in our World News section.

Here is a win by Nakamura from the 5th round of the Gibraltar Masters.

White: Nakamura, H (2613)
Black: Del Rio Angelis, S (2502)
Round 5, Gibraltar Masters
1. c4 Nf6 2. Nc3 c5 3. g3 g6 4. Bg2 Bg7 5. a3 Nc6 6. Rb1 a5 7. e3 e6 8. Nge2 d5 9. b3 d4 10. Na4 Nd7 11. exd4 cxd4 12. d3 e5 13. O-O O-O 14. b4 axb4 15. axb4 Ne7 16. b5 Nb6 17. Nxb6 Qxb6 18. Bd2 Bf5 19. Bb4 Rfe8 20. Nc1 Qc7 21. Re1 Nc8 22. Nb3 Nb6 23. Ba5 Bf8 24. c5 Rxa5 25. cxb6 Qxb6 26. Nxa5 Qxa5 27. Bxb7 Bb4 28. Bc6 Re7 29. Re2 Bg4 30. f3 Bc8 31. Qb3 1-0

To visit the official site of the Gibraltar Chess Congress, click here.