American grandmasters Gata Kamsky and Irina Krush ultimately prevailed in a fierce US championship competition which was played in St Louis, from May 7 to 21. The 2014 champions never led the unpredictable tournaments (the men and women) until the playoffs, the Armageddon games. The decisive Armageddon games are played when there are ties for first place. Akobian beat Lenderman while Abrahamyan drew Zatonskih with the black pieces and thereby progressed to the final. There Kamsky beat Akobian 11/2-1/2 and Krush did likewise to Abrahamyan. Kamsky is the US champion for the fifth time and Krush won her sixth title. The highest ranked player in the US, Hikaru Nakamura, a previous US champion, did not participate in the tournament.
In other chess news closer to home, Filipino grandmaster Wesley So, 20, the eighth youngest grandmaster in history, which he attained at 14, won the 49th edition of the rigorous Capablanca Memorial chess tournament in Havana from May 8 to 18. Jose Raul Capablanca was the chess-suave Cuban world champion who ruled chess in the 1920s.
The elite group at the tournament boasted six players with an average FIDE rating of 2721. So and Cuban grandmaster Lazaro Bruzon, the
