Five Titles Up For Grabs As National Invitationals Enter Final Day

The final round of the five national invitational tournaments of state champions begun this morning at 10:00 a.m. CDT, with four of the five events taking the same shape.

In every event but the Haring, there is one player with 4½/5 going into the last round, meaning they’re “win and in” as outright champion. But a draw (or loss) would allow anybody from the chasing group to claim a share of the title. These “chasing” packs range from two (Barber) or three players (Irwin, Denker) all the way up to seven in the Rockefeller.

In the Haring, however, three players enter Thursday’s final round with 4½/5 scores, but only one player trails this group by a half-point. So, while we know nobody will win their tournament with a perfect 6/6 score, will we have any outright champions this year? Or will we have five? Either outcome, at this point, seems highly unlikely.

The annotations from the invitationals again come from WGM Sabina Foisor. If you haven’t been following along live, I strongly recommend heading over to Twitch right now!

Irwin

In the Irwin, GM Alexander Fishbein (TN) leads the group of FM Robby Adamson (AZ), IM Stuart Rachels (AL), and FM Gregory Markzon (NJ) at the top of the standings.

Fishbein (L) produced one of the most entertaining attacking games of the tournament in his fourth-round win over Alexander Matros (Photo by David Llada)

Fishbein dispatched IM Alexander Matros (SC) with an inspired triple-pawn sacrifice in the Benko Gambit on Wednesday morning before taking an early draw with Rachels.

Rachels made it to the top board after outlasting FM Doug Eckert (MO) in another instructive endgame.

Adamson defeated IM Timothy Taylor (CA-N) in a wild one (see below) Wednesday morning before drawing GM Melik Khachiyan (CA-S), while Markzon won both of his games yesterday to join the tie for second, including the miniature below.

It’s Adamson – Fishbein on board one, with the outcome of Rachels – Markzon coming into play if Fishbein does not win.

Denker

IM Bach Ngo (FL) takes sole first into Thursday’s final round in the Denker, a half-point ahead of IM Liam Putnam (NY), Steve Wongso (AZ), and FM Isaac Wang (CA-S).

Bach Ngo (R) defeated Evan Park in the battle of IMs to take control of the Denker (Photo by David Llada)

After drawing IM Eric Li (CA-N) in round four, Ngo’s fifth-round victory over IM Evan Park (PA) put him in control of his own destiny today. Despite Park’s best efforts, the bishop-versus-knight imbalance did not compensate for Ngo’s extra pawn:

Park’s loss came after a fourth-round draw against Wang that looked like an equal position until Park found an incredible resource to achieve a forced win, only to turn the tides once again by missing the correct follow-up.

Wang then won his fifth-round game against Troy Cavanah (MN), to join the three-way tie for second.

Isaac Wang's win over Troy Cavanah (L) put him in position to claim a share of the title with a win today on board one (Photo by David Llada)

Meanwhile, after a draw against FM Avi Kaplan in round four, Putnam produced a victory over Li to stay within striking distance of Ngo, while Wongso won both games to leap up the standings, including an imbalanced endgame highlighted below:

The leader again takes the black pieces, with Wang – Ngo on the top board and Wongso – Putnam coming into play if Ngo does not win.

Haring

In the odd duck out from a standings standpoint, FM Megan Paragua (NY), WIM Omya Vidyarthi (CA-N), and WFM Irene Fei (IA) all boast 4½/5 scores heading into the final round, with only WCM Khanim Ismayilova (VA) trailing by a half-point.

Megan Paragua (R)'s come-from-behind win against Cortez put her back in a tie for first after Wednesday's games (Photo by David Llada)

Paragua caught up with the leaders by winning both of her games on Wednesday, first against Esther Jou and then against Rebecca Cortez.

It was a tough day for Cortez, who entered the day with a share of the lead before failing to convert her fourth-round game against Fei:

After escaping the a-pawn that morning, Fei went from grinding for a draw in a rook-and-pawn endgame to grinding for a win in a rook-and-pawn endgame against Yangyang Shen (TX), and, once again, she accomplished her goal:

Irene Fei (R, first photo) and Omya Vidyarthi (R, second photo) join Paragua in a three-way tie for first, while Khanim Ismayilova (R, third photo) is the only other player who could tie for first. (Photos by David Llada)

It was a disappointing outcome for Shen, who, like Cortez, entered Wednesday as a co-leader before drawing Vidyarthi in the fourth round. Vidyarthi, in contrast, responded to that draw by defeating WCM Ananya Wadhwa (KS) in what looked like it was going to be a miniature before one inaccuracy prolonged Black’s fate:

If a miniature is defined as a game to finish in under 25 moves, then Ismayilova only missed the window by two moves in her fifth-round game against Caroline Jiang. But, since Jiang allowed an aesthetically pleasing mate to be played on the board, we’ll count it as an unofficial miniature:

On board one, it’s Vidyarthi – Paragua, while Fei takes the black pieces against Ismayilova on board two.

Barber

Siddharth Singh (TX) is the sole leader in the Barber after winning both of his games on Wednesday. Considering that Singh had a half-point bye in the first round, he remains as the only player to win all of his games in any of the invitational tournaments.

While Marcus Zheng (MI) entered Wednesday as the outright leader, a loss to Kyle Zhuang (VA):

Only two players are in the group a half-point behind Singh, with one of them (Elliott Goodrich, NY) playing as White against Singh this morning. The other player, Andrew Wu (NC) is White against Oscar Izzy Williams (FL), who leads the group of players with 3½/5 scores.

Rockefeller

FM Ted Wang (WA) leads seven players by a half-point in the Rockefeller after defeating Santhosh Ayyappan (NJ) in round four before drawing FM Linxi Zhu (NY).

Ted Wang (R) protected his lead over Linxi Zhu (and six others) by drawing his penultimate game after coming close to a win (Photo by David Llada)

Zhu also drew Shawn Xu (MA) in round four. But Wang’s lead was one precise move away from being a full point:

Wang has the black pieces against Xu on board one today. If Wang does not win, the results of boards two through four all come into play!

Open

In the seven-day schedule of the U.S. Open, only four players remain perfect after five rounds. With six grandmasters competing in this section, this means we were treated to our first GM-on-GM decisive game, with GM Mikhail Antipov (MO) defeating Indian GM Rahul Srivatshav:

Antipov joins GMs Jianchao Zhou (MA), Joshua Friedel (MI), and Varuzhan Akobian (MO). The sixth GM, India’s Harsha Bharathakoti, took a half-point bye, putting him alongside Anjaneya Rao (IL) and Corbin Gustafson (NM) in shared fifth with 4½/5.

Almost two dozen players made it through the first two rounds of the five-day schedule unscathed, led by IM Sam Schmakel. These players will be put through the paces with three more games today (G/90, D/5), followed by a sixth-round game Friday morning played at the slower time control before the seventh-round merge Friday evening.

In the four-day schedule, 88 brave souls will play four rounds of G/60, D/5 games today, and then two more rounds tomorrow morning before the first merged round tomorrow night. Five GMs are among this group: Daniel Naroditsky, Andrew Hong, Dariusz Swiercz, Tanguy Ringoir, and Praveen Balakrishnan.

With a spot in this October’s U.S. Championship on the line for the top-finishing American (i.e.: registered with FIDE under the American federation), none of these players want to give up an early-round draw before the merge.

Ukrainian FM Roman Pyrih is the 2025 G/15 National Champion, sweeping the field 5/0 on Wednesday. Full results are here. In addition to the 38 players competing in yesterday’s championship event, another 22 competed in Wednesday’s quads. Remember, there are more quads today and tomorrow, with registration available on-site at Chess Control.

Today is the first of two full days of committee meetings and workshops. A breakdown of meetings by day is available here and, in calendar view, here.

Follow all schedules of the Open tonight on uschess.live, and catch WGM Sabina Foisor’s recap of the U.S. Open so far tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. CDT. A full schedule of streaming times is here.

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