Akopian Wins 2024 U.S. Senior Championship With a Round to Spare, Yoo and Lee lead Junior and Girls' Junior

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.

The third time was the charm for Vladimir Akopian, who won his first U.S. Senior Championship with a round to spare (Photo courtesy Crystal Fuller/SLCC)

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.

Jesse Kraai (R) has moved up to outright second place in the standings in his first U.S. Senior Championship (Photo courtesy Crystal Fuller/SLCC)

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.

Alice Lee won her penultimate game from an objectively equal position, and was equally interested in her closest competitor Rose Atwell's endgame as well (Photo courtesy Crystal Fuller/SLCC)

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.

Photo courtesy Lennart Ootes/SLCC

Photo courtesy Crystal Fuller/SLCC

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.

Photo courtesy Crystal Fuller/SLCC

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!

In his last U.S. Junior Championship, Andrew Hong (R) is willing to go the extra mile, today playing a 172-move draw against Brewington Hardaway (Photo courtesy Crystal Fuller/SLCC)

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.

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