US chess Championship round 7: Zherebukh stuns Caruana

23-year-old Yaroslav Zherebukh has joined Wesley So in the US Championship lead after outplaying world no. 3 and defending champion Fabiano Caruana. Elsewhere it was the day of the veterans, with Alexander Shabalov simply needing to remember computer analysis to beat Jeffery Xiong, while Daniel Naroditsky paid a heavy price for taking Gata Kamsky into a Ruy Lopez line the former World Championship Challenger had been playing all his life.

Last year Fabiano Caruana won the US Championship with an unbeaten +6. This year’s tournament has been very different, with a Round 7 disaster knocking Fabi back to 50%.