After 3 consecutive disastrous games, Hikaru finally won his first game. Can he pull off a Fischer-like 6-0 to close out the tournament? If not, he won’t have a chance to get to the final. His victim today is WIM Epstein.
The 19-year old Mongolian dynamite Batchimeg “Chimi”drew against GM Gulko today with the Black pieces. She is the top scoring woman with 2.5 / 4.
GM DeFirmian drew GM Onischuk. Therefore, Alex still maintains his lead in group A. GM D. Gurevich defeated GM Goldin to share the lead with GM Onischuk. They are both at 3.5 / 4.
In group B, GM Shulman defeated GM Shabalov to take the sole lead in his group with 3.5 / 4.
There were a few mild upsets today:
IM Friedel 1-0 IM Finegold
Vicary 1-0 NM Kleiman
IM Kriventsov 1/2 GM Becerra
WFM Abrahamyan 1/2 NM Liu
IM Bercys 1/2 GM Benjamin
GM Akobian 1/2 FM Stein 
Congrats to Hikaru! He is now only -1 against 2300 average competition.
Sam
Gurevich, Onischuk and Shulman are having a very good tournament.
Anyone remember this prediction of mine, back in January?
Looks like it may be coming to fruition.
Sounds like some kind of celtic death wish to me?
Nakamura won again today.
Chimi. 19 years old beat GM Becerra today. 3 GM scalps in a row. even Kamsky only drew Becerra. she had him in mate in 2. he was dead meat long before this and she played it perfectly as GM Becerra kept trying to wiggle out of it. but finally threw in the towel instead of accepting the humility of a mate on the board. the fans went wild. they want chimi for the champ.
I hope she gets a mans GM norm. that would be fantastic.
everyone should go over this game the ending is great. she has the killer instinct.
Peace and Love
tommy
LOL, Chesstraveler. No, I can’t say that I care much for Nakamura. However, when Kamsky was a young upstart, I couldn’t stand him, either. Now that he’s matured, I like him a lot. Nakamura just strikes me as a spoiled brat with a chess coach for a dad.
Congratulations to Chimi ~ she is doing fantastic! Also, congratulations to Josh Friedel.