Adewumi, Singh Triumphant as Marshall Junior Championship Returns

Manhattan’s Marshall Chess Club is one of the country’s most storied chess clubs. Entering the building, you’re surrounded by history both recent and distant: plaques of past club champions, a library replete with old and first edition books, photos of guest grandmasters in the building, and even the table GM Magnus Carlsen defeated GM Sergey Karjakin on during the 2016 World Championship match held in New York.

But if you’ve played at the Marshall in recent years, “history” might not be the first thing that comes to mind. Instead, chances are you were paired against a child or junior player in at least one of your games, regardless of whether you were playing in a Rated Beginner Open (RBO) or a Premier event restricted to players rated over 2000.

A packed playing hall upstairs for the Marshall Under-12 Championship. (All photos courtesy Marshall Chess Club/Carlos Chavez)

Playing at the Marshall, in other words, is a sneak peek into the future of chess just as much as it is a tour of its past.

U12 — Left: Another view from the Under-12 Championship. Right: The Under-20 Championship held downstairs.

U20 — Left: Another view from the Under-12 Championship. Right: The Under-20 Championship held downstairs.

Last week’s Under-20 and Under-12 Club Championships celebrated the role the Marshall plays in the future of New York chess, with a total of 105 juniors competing across the two sections.

Tani Adewumi (L) during an early victory.

IM Tanitoluwa “Tani” Adewumi won the Under-20 section with a 4½/5 score, and Aarav Singh won the Under-12 section in a blitz playoff over Max Mulholland. Highlights from all three players’ games are featured below, including Adewumi’s impressive victory over GM-Elect Nico Chasin.

Aarav Singh (L) competes under the eyes of legends.

This was the first junior championship hosted by the Marshall since 2015, when only 26 players (including Chasin, and at least one other familiar name) competed. You have to go back to 2003 to find the previous edition.

The demand is there: the club currently has over 900 junior (under-20) members, and this translated into a long waitlist for the event, which sold out weeks before it began on January 30.

“The next one will definitely be next year, and not in 10 years,” Assistant Manager Kevin Feng wrote via email in light of the event’s success, which continues a recent trend of new and record-breaking events geared towards chess-playing kids and juniors in New York City.

The game of the tournament had to be the head-to-head match-up between Chasin and Adewumi, who were teammates on last year’s Columbia Grammar and Prep (CGPS) team that won the K-12 team championship at SuperNationals VIII.

Chasin and Adewumi were both individual Co-Champions in Orlando, as well, and Chasin is taking a gap year to focus on chess before beginning university in the fall. Already, it’s been a successful year for Chasin, who earned his final GM norm two months ago. But on Sunday, Adewumi took an early advantage and never relented:

To bring home the title in the Under-20 section, Adewumi won his final game by outplaying his opponent in an endgame that was about as drawish as one could imagine.

In the Under-12 section, Singh also won both of his games on Sunday to finish with a 4½/5 score. In both games, Singh saw a weakness in his opponent’s position and mounted pressure. The result was a gradual win in the first game and a tactical shot in the second:

Mulholland tied for first thanks to winning his final game by proving that the pawn was more valuable than his opponent’s bishop pair in the long run:

Singh won the blitz playoff against Mulholland to earn the Under-12 title.

It’s a good thing we won’t have to wait another decade for the next junior championship, as we will be able to see all three of Adewumi, Singh, and Mulholland in action next year. That is, unless the tournament sells out before they can register!