For many players in St. Louis, the eighth round was their last chance to make a move in the fight for first place in the 2024 U.S. Junior, Girls’ Junior, and Senior championships.
As a result, the games were among the most tumultuous of any in the event. Still, when the dust settled, almost all of the leaders in each section held firm, maintaining or improving their standing in the lead-up to the final round.
Senior
The most significant result today was GM Vladimir Akopian’s victory with the Black pieces against IM Douglas Root. Having built up a commanding lead in the early rounds of the tournament, Akopian lead by 1½ points prior to this round, and this win secured him first place and the title of U.S. Senior Champion.
Akopian, a former 2700-rated player, Armenian Champion, and Olympiad winner with dozens of international tournament successes to his name, had yet to win this event despite two previous attempts – showing the strength of the competition. This year, however, he was simply unstoppable.
GM Joel Benjamin, who found himself in shared second place before this round, developed a strong attack against GM Igor Novikov but could not find a way to break through his opponent’s defense.
Of the two other players in the chasing pack, GM Julio Becerra, drew a tense but well-played game against GM Gregory Kaidanov.
These two results allowed GM Jesse Kraai to seize clear second place in the standings, with his third win in a row (and second consecutive with the black pieces!)
While the battle for first place has already been decided, there is still fierce competition for second. Kraai is a half-point ahead of GMs Benjamin, Becerra, and GM Larry Christiansen (the latter kept his chances alive with a win as Black against GM Melik Khachiyan).
Tomorrow, Becerra must defeat Kraai with Black, Christiansen will hope to beat tailender Root with White, and Benjamin will face off with Akopian.
Girls’ Junior
Pre-tournament favorite IM Alice Lee earned clear first place for the first time in the event thanks to her fourth consecutive win, this time a technical conversion against FM Zoey Tang.
In the beginning of the tournament, it was clear that Alice was not in her best form, and a slow start almost seemed to remove her from contention. However, Lee was not to be counted out, and her advantage in class over most of the other players has come to the fore. In the last few rounds, she has consistently managed to grind out wins in simple, objectively equal positions. Today’s game was no exception.
However, not all is yet decided, as FM Rose Atwell managed to hold on to a draw in a completely lost bishop endgame against Jasmine Su. Some of the variations could easily have come out of a study:
Thus, Atwell remains only a half-point behind Lee prior to the last round. The players have already faced each other (Lee won in round three), so Rose’s fate is not entirely in her own hands.
Tomorrow, Atwell plays White against WFM Rachael Li, and Lee takes the Black pieces against WFM Megan Paragua.
The only other decisive result of the day was WIM Iris Mou’s win against WFM Chloe Gaw. Mou quickly gained a winning advantage after Gaw miscalculated in the early middlegame but allowed some saving chances later in the game. However, Gaw, facing pressure on both the board and the clock, finally succumbed in a difficult endgame. The other two games – Li against WFM Yassi Ehsani and WIM Omya Vidyarthi against Paragua – were drawn.
Junior
Though the results may not show it, today’s round was a dramatic one in the U.S. Junior Championship. When looking through the games, I had to recall the words of GM Jan Hein Donner: “give me a difficult positional game, and I’ll play it. But totally winning positions I cannot stand.” In four out of five games, one player at some point had a decisive advantage, but at the end of the day, all the games were drawn!
IM Jason Wang, in shared second place, desperately needed to defeat the leader, GM Christopher Yoo, with the white pieces. His chance came early on: Yoo erred one move after the end of his preparation and was objectively lost.
However, Jason did not find the correct path and Christopher managed to salvage a draw.
My teammate at Brown University, GM Andrew Hong, was also a half-point behind Christopher at the beginning of this round. This is Andrew’s last chance to win this tournament (he will be too old to participate again next year), and he is certainly doing everything can to break through to the top of the standings: in the seventh round, he won after playing for 106 moves, and today, he played the longest game of the tournament, totaling an astounding 172 moves!
However, these efforts were not enough against IM Brewington Hardaway’s unrelenting defense; in fact, Brewington was winning for most of the game before mistakes in the time scramble forced him to defend an endgame with knight against rook.
The three other draws were also full of intrigue. GM Balaji Daggupati, playing as White against GM Arthur Guo, missed at least one clear win in time pressure and eventually allowed Guo to fight back and save the day with a series of “only moves.” The chaos briefly resulted in a position with four queens on the board, but by this point Daggupati’s winning chances were gone.
GM Andy Woodward was strategically lost out of the opening against IM Justin Wang, but managed to create such incredible complications that even a fine calculator as Wang eventually cracked under the pressure and allowed a draw.
Finally, bottom seed Nicholas Ladan played solid chess and split the point with IM Jason Liang. This is Ladan’s first half-point of the tournament, and his play should be credited: though playing opponents several hundred points higher rated than him, he has been fighting incredibly hard in every game and could have easily earned more points with a bit more luck.
In the final round, Yoo has the White pieces against Daggupati and controls his own destiny. Hong plays as White in a must-win game against Justin Wang, while Jason Wang has the equally difficult task of defeating Woodward with Black.
Quick Links
Follow our coverage of the 2024 National Championships
Official Website
Replay all games on Chess.com: Senior / Girls' Junior / Junior
Follow live commentary with GM Yasser Seirawan, GM Christian Chirila, and IM Nazi Paikidze on Twitch or YouTube
Categories
Archives
- December 2024 (20)
- November 2024 (18)
- October 2024 (35)
- September 2024 (23)
- August 2024 (27)
- July 2024 (44)
- June 2024 (27)
- May 2024 (32)
- April 2024 (51)
- March 2024 (34)
- February 2024 (25)
- January 2024 (26)
- December 2023 (29)
- November 2023 (26)
- October 2023 (37)
- September 2023 (27)
- August 2023 (37)
- July 2023 (47)
- June 2023 (33)
- May 2023 (37)
- April 2023 (45)
- March 2023 (37)
- February 2023 (28)
- January 2023 (31)
- December 2022 (23)
- November 2022 (32)
- October 2022 (31)
- September 2022 (19)
- August 2022 (39)
- July 2022 (32)
- June 2022 (35)
- May 2022 (21)
- April 2022 (31)
- March 2022 (33)
- February 2022 (21)
- January 2022 (27)
- December 2021 (36)
- November 2021 (34)
- October 2021 (25)
- September 2021 (25)
- August 2021 (41)
- July 2021 (36)
- June 2021 (29)
- May 2021 (29)
- April 2021 (31)
- March 2021 (33)
- February 2021 (28)
- January 2021 (29)
- December 2020 (38)
- November 2020 (40)
- October 2020 (41)
- September 2020 (35)
- August 2020 (38)
- July 2020 (36)
- June 2020 (46)
- May 2020 (42)
- April 2020 (37)
- March 2020 (60)
- February 2020 (38)
- January 2020 (45)
- December 2019 (35)
- November 2019 (35)
- October 2019 (42)
- September 2019 (45)
- August 2019 (56)
- July 2019 (44)
- June 2019 (35)
- May 2019 (40)
- April 2019 (48)
- March 2019 (61)
- February 2019 (39)
- January 2019 (30)
- December 2018 (29)
- November 2018 (51)
- October 2018 (45)
- September 2018 (29)
- August 2018 (49)
- July 2018 (35)
- June 2018 (31)
- May 2018 (39)
- April 2018 (31)
- March 2018 (26)
- February 2018 (33)
- January 2018 (30)
- December 2017 (26)
- November 2017 (24)
- October 2017 (30)
- September 2017 (30)
- August 2017 (31)
- July 2017 (28)
- June 2017 (32)
- May 2017 (26)
- April 2017 (37)
- March 2017 (28)
- February 2017 (30)
- January 2017 (27)
- December 2016 (29)
- November 2016 (24)
- October 2016 (32)
- September 2016 (31)
- August 2016 (27)
- July 2016 (24)
- June 2016 (26)
- May 2016 (19)
- April 2016 (30)
- March 2016 (36)
- February 2016 (28)
- January 2016 (32)
- December 2015 (26)
- November 2015 (23)
- October 2015 (16)
- September 2015 (28)
- August 2015 (28)
- July 2015 (6)
- June 2015 (1)
- May 2015 (2)
- April 2015 (1)
- February 2015 (3)
- January 2015 (1)
- December 2014 (1)
- July 2010 (1)
- October 1991 (1)
- August 1989 (1)
- January 1988 (1)
- December 1983 (1)