Lee Joins Veterans Atop Cairns Cup Standings after Five Rounds

The battle of youth versus experience at this year’s Cairns Cup is looking a bit drawish after five rounds of action at the Saint Louis Chess Club (SLCC). Three players entered the rest day as co-leaders with 3½/5 scores: Indian GMs Humpy Koneru (age 38), Harika Dronavalli (age 34), and American IM Alice Lee (age 15).

Alice Lee remains unbeaten halfway through her second Cairns Cup (Photo courtesy of Lennart Ootes/SLCC)

Polish IM Alina Kashlinskaya (age 31) sits in clear fourth with 3/5, and American IM Carissa Yip (age 21) rounds out the top half as the only player with an even score (having played four decisive games to get there).

Graphic courtesy of SLCC

The standings reflect the successful curation of this year’s lineup of players, with the more experienced players and the younger guns looking to be roughly equally matched and trading blows.

The colorful field poses outside the World Chess Hall of Fame before the opening ceremony (Photo courtesy of Crystal Fuller/SLCC)

Indeed, one of the two foreign IMs — 21-year-old Kazakh IM Bibisara Assaubayeva — already qualified for the GM title a few weeks ago, while Kashlinskaya remains within striking distance of the title as well. And both Lee and Yip have lived up to expectations for displaying some fighting chess, as well.

The first round alone produced five decisive results in as many games. The key moments were featured in last week’s Wednesday Workout, and many more will be showing up this week. Below are Yip and Lee’s first-round games, unannotated, to get a feel for the type of grinds both players have been facing all tournament.

The next day, Lee improved to 2/2 with a fine tactical sequence as Black against GM Mariya Muzychuk. What was Lee's brilliancy here?

Black to play: Position after 23. Nde2

From there, Lee produced solid draws against GM Nana Dzagnidze, Tan Zhongyi, and Humpy in consecutive rounds to stay atop the standings with 3½/5. At the time of writing, Lee is on the back foot against Assaubayeva after around 18 moves, and the next three rounds don’t look any easier with Kashlinskaya, Harika, and Yip still on the menu.

Some special guests have been known to stop by SLCC from time to time, and this tournament has been no exception. (Photo courtesy of Lennart Ootes/SLCC)

After her heartbreaking 118-move loss in the first round and an uneventful draw in her second consecutive black game (this time against Kashlinskaya) in round 2, Yip scored her first win after surviving a ferocious attack from GM Nino Batsiashvili. At this key juncture, where should Yip’s king move?

White to play: Position after 30. ... Qh2+

After a loss against Muzychuk, Yip again bounced back with a victory on Saturday to regain equilibrium. This time, she was on the “fun” side of a tense rook endgame, ultimately completing her sweep of the Georgian delegation with a win over Dzagnidze. In this key position, we again ask where Yip’s king ought to go?

White to play: Position after 46. ... Re6+

All solutions will be revealed in this week’s Wednesday Workout.

Round 6 is currently underway, with the final three rounds taking place Tuesday through Thursday of this week. Play begins at 12:00 p.m. C.D.T. (with broadcast on a 30-minute delay), and it can be followed on SLCC’s YouTube channel.

Before her last-round showdown against Lee, Yip will have the white pieces tomorrow against Humpy and then the black pieces against Assaubayeva. Yip plays as White against Lee, but Lee is White against both Kashlinskaya and Harika. There’s no such thing as an easy pairing in this tournament, and we should expect the standings to remain volatile throughout the week.