Fireworks in San Diego

Despite this being the round where draws begin to mount, the lower half had 14 decisive result from 16 games!  Despite only five decisive games on the first 16 boards, many games were hard fought including the Christiansen-Browne and Lopez-Benjamin battles which virtually ended with two kings. Perhaps one player who is not happy to make draws is  Gata Kamsky, the top seed. This time Dmitry Schneider nicked him for a half-point. One of the tournament's wildest draws occurred between Alexander Onischuk and Julio Becerra.

This game was destined for fireworks as Onischuk trotted out the Shirov-Shabalov Gambit  against the Slav with 7.g4!? By the 12th move, white already had a pawn on the 7th rank, but material was hanging everywhere. The position after 15…Bf4 (see diagram) appeared to come from a "play and win" diagram.

In  fact, there was no win for either side as  Oniscuk was forced to find a cute draw by sacrificing yet another piece with 26.Bd6+ Kxd6 27.Qc6+ Ke5 28.Qe4+ draw. The final position looks very amusing with some of the combatants ended up in strange places.  Exciting game by two gladiators!

Alexander Shabalov got back on track with an impressive knight romp over Esther Epstein. Pre-tourney favorite Hikaru Nakamura kept pace by beating the local-favorite, Cyrus Lakdawala. Four players maintain perfect scores: Nakamura, Ildar Ibragimov, Sergey Kudrin and Alexander Stripunsky.

The two players arrived at this position in less that 20 moves! Julio Becerra uncorked 15...Bf4.  After 16.Qh3, the game ended in a spectacular draw moves later.

The Better Half?

The lower half of the field is certainly were much of the damage was done to opposing kings.  Only two games ended in draws and those who have been tracking the female players may have been pleased with the silver-medal Olympiad players. Jennifer Shahade outplayed Enkhbat Tegshsuren; Irina Krush crushed Michael Casella in 19 moves; Anna Zatonskih held Nick DeFirmian in an exciting draw in a Najdorf.

In another exciting battle, Laura Ross notched her first win with a nice finish against Stephen Muhammad. After getting a good position out of the opening, she later squandered her advantage and Muhammad appeared to be turning the tables. Ross placed her hopes in an active piece play and an attack against Muhammad's king. The game took on a peculiar symmetry with each side employing a rook for defense and advancing a queen, rook and knight in the opposing camp. However, Ross' attack would break through first after she dealt a combination ending in mate. Muhammad will bounce back.

Another exciting game took place between Blas Lugo and Iryna Zenyuk. The Cuban player was facing an onslaught on his queenside castled king. However Zenyuk had her own issues with king safety. Lugo kept his composure, beat back the attack and launched an attack on her exposed king. Under pressure, Zenyuk could no longer hold and allowed a one-move mate. A classic battle on opposite wings!