The King's pawn
Mishra goes for a direct and open battle, in the battle-tested waters of the king's pawn game.
Aronian keeps things solid, mirroring his opponent's first move.
Mishra targets the central pawn
He steps his kingside knight out, putting immediate pressure on Aronian's pawn.
Aronian develops his queenside knight, protecting against the threat on his pawn.
A solid choice from Mishra, taking the game into classical terrain that has been deeply explored over many years. Let's see if either player comes up with a fresh idea here.
The Classical Variation
He steps his bishop forward, mirroring his opponent's move. This is one of the most solid ways of handing the Italian Game, suggesting that Aronian isn't looking to take undue risk early on.
Mishra prepares to control the center
He covers an important dark square in the heart of the center, and also hints at the possibility of supporting a push of his queen's pawn in the future.
Aronian jumps his knight out
This time, he is the one to target the undefended central pawn.
Mishra steps his pawn out one square, supporting its colleague that was under pressure from Aronian's knight.
Aronian brings his king to safety.
Mishra also castles.
The direct approach
This is a very respected line, but it's also a little dangerous. The reason is that Aronian will get to immediately have a nice presence in the center, but at the cost of making his position a little unstable. Mishra will hope to make use of this in the next few moves.
There's nothing else to do here that would make sense, since Mishra wants to open up the position in order to more easily target Aronian's remaining central pawn.
Aronian takes back
He's now got a nice central pawn/piece presence, but neither of these points are overly well defended. So he'll have to manage this in the coming moves, to make sure that Mishra isn't able to put him under more pressure than is comfortable.
Mishra immediately sets up a threat
He brings his rook to the semi-open file in order to target Aronian's weakest (and at the same time most valuable) pawn.
A tactical resource to help guard the pawn, by pinning the knight against Mishra's queen.
Mishra supports his knight
He frees up the queen from having to guard the pinned piece, at the same time continuing his development.
Aronian moves to strike Mishra's strong Italian bishop, making use of the fact that if it moves then Aronian could win the central pawn with his queen.
Mishra grabs space
He begins a plan of expansion on the queenside, gaining time against Aronian's active bishop.
Aronian drops back.
Mishra allows his bishop to be captured
He couldn't really avoid this, since that would cost him his central pawn. So instead, he's focused on gaining as much space as possible on the left flank, something that will make Aronian's knights feel quite uncomfortable.
Aronian picks up the bishop pair, though it does come at the cost of inviting Mishra's knight to move nearer to the center, from where it will exert a lot of pressure on Aronian's central pawn.
Mishra takes back, and is now threatening to win a pawn.
Aronian supports his center
The pawn needed to be guarded, and so he slightly weakens his king position (opening up a light-squared diagonal that runs towards his king).
Mishra harasses the knight
A benefit of where Mishra has his own queenside knight is that it covers the only forward jump available to Aronian's knight. This means that Aronian has to go passive with the piece.
Aronian retreats
He has no choice but to return his knight to the starting square. However, he's comfortable with making that kind of concession, as the upshot is that he has managed to pick up the bishop pair through his early maneuvering.
Mishra looks to open up the game
Even though Aronian has the bishop pair (which typically gain in strength in open battle), it's still in Mishra's interest to open up some lines. The reason is that he has the more active pieces, since Aronian's knight was forced back to its starting square.
Aronian threatens to win a pawn
He's clearly a little bothered by Mishra's oppressive space advantage on the left flank. Now, he's threatening to win a pawn, since recapturing would not right now be an option for Mishra, whose rook would be left hanging at the end of the sequence.
Mishra seems to be quite uncomfortable by now, having spent much longer thinking than Levon as we find ourselves in the early stages of the middlegame. His last move is not so strong, as it leaves him with an isolated pawn and allows Aronian to bring his rook into the game.
Aronian is happy to take back with the rook, which sits quite safe here and from now on will pressure Mishra's isolated pawn on the left hand side.
Aronian covers the diagonal
That light-squared diagonal that the bishop now sits on was especially weak, since Aronian had moved his pawns in such a way that it exposed his king. So the bishop now guards that weak part of his position.
Aronian covers the diagonal
That light-squared diagonal that the bishop now sits on was especially weak, since Aronian had moved his pawns in such a way that it exposed his king. So the bishop now guards that weak part of his position.
A loss of ambition?
This move feels like Mishra has come away from the opening a bit disappointed with the position that he's got, and so he now invites a queen trade to simplify matters and focus on drawing more so than trying to win.
Aronian trades queens, though I'm not sure what his motivations for this were. He could have also just taken back the central pawn immediately, and kept the piece tension along the important file.
Mishra takes back
Even though Aronian is down a pawn, he will not be even slightly worried about this. He's got the bishop pair and a much better structure, as well as more active pieces. There's almost no doubt that he'll be able to win back the pawn soon if that's what he wants. But his focus is going to be on trying to find a way to press for a win from here, rather than guide the game to equality.
Aronian focuses on his development, understanding that if Mishra plays pawn takes pawn he will get the chance to plant his bishop on the strong diagonal and add to the piece pressure.
A strong practical move
Mishra recognizes that Aronian's bishop pair could get dangerous, so he plants his knight in the center to invite a favorable piece trade.
Aronian can't really allow that knight to stand there, as it pressures his bishop and, importantly, his queenside pawn. So he gives up his bishop to get rid of it.
Mishra takes back, though it's unclear whether his rook on this square is going to be a little exposed or not.
Aronian targets the weak pawn
He's still down material for now, so he adds to the firepower along the semi-open file, hoping to recover his pawn on the next move. It makes sense, though the danger is that as the position simplifies, Mishra is going to be able to guide the game towards a draw with relative ease.
Mishra makes some space for his king.
Aronian releases the tension
He decides to go for the exchange in the center. The risk (at least if he's trying to win) is that now we're going to see further piece trades.
Mishra recaptures, inviting a knight exchange.
Aronian takes back, so that he'll be able to drive the rook to a poor square.
Mishra will be happy to see one more set of pieces coming off the board, inching that bit closer to the draw.
Aronian targets the bishop
He adds to the pressure against Mishra's position. While he remains a pawn down for now, it won't be the case for long. There is no way for Mishra to hang on to both of his weak queenside pawns.
Mishra moves his rook away from the attack, and sets up a threat of his own against Aronian's undefended pawn.
Aronian pushes his pawn up, covering against the attack.
Mishra drops back, in order to hang on to the pawn that is being attacked by Aronian's bishop.
Aronian recovers his pawn.
Mishra takes back, seeking to simplify as much as possible.
Mishra recovers his rook.
Mishra takes aim at Aronian's pawn.
Aronian defends his pawn, at the same time hitting Mishra's last remaining weak (isolated) pawn.
Mishra drops back to defend. The plan from here for him is going to be to try to maintain this solid defensive formation, and aim to make a draw from a slightly inferior position.
Aronian aims to bring his king closer to the center.
Mishra does the same, as the kings play an important active role in the endgame.
Objectively, the position is really close to equal. But in practice, Mishra has to constantly watch out because he is the side with the weaker structure (due to that isolated pawn on the queenside). And a win today would be worth its weight in gold for Levon Aronian, as he came into the round trailing the leaders by 1/2 a point.
Mishra improves his king as much as possible, looking to stop Aronian's own king from getting too far up the board.
Mishra pushes his pawn forward, guarding against the attack.
Aronian drives his rook back closer towards the center, targeting Mishra's other pawn.
Mishra steps forward with his bishop to support the base of his pawn chain.
Aronian reroutes his bishop, though without any clear threats for now. Mishra has done a great job of holding the balance.
Aronian pushes his own pawn forward, following the same principle of trying to place them on light squares.
Aronian looks for activity along the left flank, perhaps trying to drop down and give a check to Mishra's king.
Mishra centers his rook.
Aronian has forced another pawn exchange, leaving himself with a passed pawn on the left hand side that he'll be hoping he can make use of to trouble Mishra's defenses over the coming moves.
In spite of the dangerous-looking passed pawn for Aronian, the limited amount of material on the board makes it hard to believe that he's going to be able to trouble Mishra from here.
Aronian has rearranged his bishop on to a stronger square than before, limiting Mishra's king movement. But the issue is that he continues to have no real way of making progress into Mishra's position.
This is a defensive configuration (or fortress) that Mishra can hang on to for as long as he wants. For this reason, we are likely to see a draw quite soon.
Looks like Aronian has decided to call it a day, as the players move towards a 3-fold repetition.
Levon Aronian got a dream position out of the opening against Abhimanyu Mishra, who never appeared to get into his stride and create any pressure from the White side.
Unfortunately, the problem was that the edge that Levon got only came after a lot of piece trades had taken place, including the queen exchange.
What this meant, was that Mishra had an unpleasant endgame on his hands, but one where the limited amount of material always gave him a great chance of guiding the game towards a draw with best play.
As it turned out, Mishra was very much up to the task. He once again demonstrated excellent endgame play, and confidently extinguished the little threats that Aronian set for him, in an attempt to trip up the 16-year old.
In the end, a fair result, though one that Levon will be quite disillusioned with. Fabiano Caruana, who started the round half a point ahead of him, seems to be on his way to a win against Sam Shankland. That will leave Levon a full point behind the leader with just two rounds to go. And that's a big gap to bridge, especially when the person leading also happens to be the highest rated player in the tournament!
Back again tomorrow, have a good evening.
Aronian still in with a shot
A big game for Levon Aronian today. With just three rounds left in the Championships, he finds himself in a delicate position near the top of the tournament leaderboard.
The 43-year-old knows that his career will not extend as long as that of many of the participants in this year's edition. But as long as he remains one of the best players in the world, he will continue to push for more achievements. Adding a U.S. Championship title to his already extensive list of accomplishments is no doubt very high on his list of goals.
He's currently on 5 out of 8 - just half a point behind tournament co-leaders, Fabiano Caruana and Wesley So. A win today could well mean taking fate into his own hands, as he is scheduled to have the White pieces against Caruana in the final round on Friday.
However, all of this will be a moot point if Abhimanyu Mishra gets his way today, and given the fact that he has the White pieces it would not be a surprise to see him fighting for the full point.
Between Mishra's ambitious nature, and Levon's need to close the gap between him and the tournament leaders, we are likely to see a full-blooded fight today. So, as the saying goes...may the best man win!