There were two wins in round one of the 2022 U.S. Championship, and only two more wins in today’s round two. Did the super-GMs win? Nope. They have yet to win a game in this tournament, though Levon Aronian had serious winning chances against Leinier Dominguez today. How about the round 1 winners, did they add to their total? Again, no, though Hans Niemann should have won against Jeffery Xiong.
Instead, it was two of the three bottom seeds who won - the two players who lost in round 1. Elshan Moradiabadi won with surprising ease against Awonder Liang on the white side of a Closed Ruy. The drama of an unusual Breyer was quickly dissolved as Moradiabadi refuted Liang’s idea of 14…c4 15.dxc4 Nc5. The game lasted a long time, but it was fundamentally over by move 22.
The second win was an even bigger upset, as 15-year-old Christopher Yoo bounced back from his first round loss to Niemann by defeating Wesley So(!), and with the black pieces(!!). So achieved a positionally winning advantage, but one where there was real danger to his king. That proved the most salient feature of the position, and Yoo did a great job taking advantage of So’s errors, finishing with a crushing attack.
The remaining games were drawn, so the day 1 leaders remain in front today. Here are the round 2 games, with my notes to the games mentioned above. And here are the pairings for round 3:
Sevian (1.5) - Aronian (1)
Liang (.5) - Lenderman (1)
Yoo (1) - Moradiabadi (1)
Xiong (1) - So (.5)
Shankland (1) - Niemann (1.5)
Caruana (1) - Swiercz (1)
Dominguez (1) - Robson (1)