A Wild Game from the Women's Section of the American Cup

It isn't only daters who have a hard time finding a mate.

The American Cup finished over the weekend, with Hikaru Nakamura winning the open section and Alice Lee winning the women’s tournament. A separate post on the event is likely; for now, have a look at this very entertaining game from the match between two-time defending U.S. Women’s Champion Carissa Yip and Thalia Cervantes Landeiro.

Yip played a creative and rare opening line with White, but it was Cervantes who did a much better job of handling the unusual position. Cervantes played very well, whipped up a dangerous attack, and was on the verge of cashing in a well-deserved victory. She had a fairly simple mate in four…and then cracked, possibly in time trouble. She missed the mate and gave away the entire advantage, and then a further error three moves later resulted in a winning endgame for Yip, which she successfully converted.

Such losses are gut-wrenching - as all of us know - and hopefully that’s a bit of consolation for her: we’ve all been there. She’s young - she’ll be back. The game was very interesting though, and a reminder that there’s still plenty of room for improvisation in the opening.