2018 U.S. Championship, Round 5: Six Draws

At least some people have the right spirit. All six games were drawn in round 5 of the U.S. Championship, which means that Wesley So, Sam Shankland, and Varuzhan Akobian remain tied for first with +2 scores, half a point ahead of Fabiano Caruana.

Shankland came close to making it a 1.5 point lead over Caruana, up a pawn for no compensation shortly before the time control. Material was limited, however, so Black (Caruana) had good drawing chances in any case. Still, had Shankland met Black's threatened 40...Ne2+ with 40.Kh3!, intending to meet 40...Ne2 with 41.Kg4, he'd have maintained some winning chances. Instead, he played 40.Kg4, and Caruana had no trouble neutralizing White's bid for activity, and the game was soon drawn.

So had Black against Jeffery Xiong, and played solidly against the Catalan, achieving an easy draw in 22 moves. Akobian's game with Zviad Izoria was more interesting and went more than twice as long as Xiong-So, but he had no winning chances to speak of, either.

Hikaru Nakamura remains stuck in neutral, but not for want of effort. He went into a main line Classical King's Indian against Aleks Lenderman, which is about as sharp an option as there is. Both sides played well, and Nakamura held a draw.

Awonder Liang and Yaroslav Zherebukh played an exciting game - just ask the 17 pairs of opponents who already played it, most recently Wei Yi and Ding Liren last December.

Finally, Alexander Onischuk and Ray Robson had a well-played draw in an Exchange Gruenfeld.

Here's what's in store tomorrow, in round 6:

• Akobian (3.5) - Shankland (3.5)
• So (3.5) - Izoria (2)
• Robson (2) - Caruana (3)
• Nakamura (2.5) - Xiong (2)
• Zherebukh (2.5) - Lenderman (2)
• Onischuk (1.5) - Liang (2)