There was a lot of action in round 11 (of 13) of the U.S. Championship - but not in the games of Fabiano Caruana and Ray Robson. Both players had White, but neither got anywhere against Jeffery Xiong and Awonder Liang, respectively, and had to settle for draws.
Four of the other five games had a winner, though, and two of the winners closed to within half a point of Robson and a point of Caruana. One was Sam Sevian, who defeated Dariusz Swiercz on the black side of a very theoretical Open Ruy Lopez. The players followed well-known theory for a long time, and when Swiercz varied from known theory the game was still balanced for quite some time. Swiercz started playing somewhat inaccurately, but had he played 35.Rxe5 a draw was still very likely. Instead, he played 35.fxe5??, probably counting on 35…Rxe5, but when Sevian played 35…Qd5+ 36.Kg1 Rf3 the game was essentially over, a result that was official six moves later.
The other player who closed to within a point of Caruana was Leinier Dominguez, who defeated Christopher Yoo in 131 moves. Yoo was losing for the last 100 moves of that game, and really made Dominguez earn it. Painfully, Dominguez slipped on move 121 and gave Yoo a single chance to save the game. Had Yoo seized this subtle opportunity, I can’t imagine how anguished Dominguez would have been. Fortunately for Dominguez’s sanity, Yoo didn’t find his chance, and White finally managed to collect the full point.
In the other games, Wesley So dominated Elshan Moradiabadi, Hans Niemann’s enduring pressure against Alex Lenderman bore fruit after the latter’s error on move 36, and Shankland-Aronian was a known draw by repetition in 15 moves.
The games, with my comments to most of them, are here. Two rounds remain, and the penultimate round has the following pairings:
Yoo (4) - Robson (7)
Shankland (6) - Caruana (7.5)
Sevian (6.5) - Niemann (5.5)
Lenderman (4.5) - So (5.5)
Aronian (4.5) - Moradiabadi (2)
Xiong (6) - Dominguez (6.5)
Liang (6) - Swiercz (5.5)