Nobody's Perfect After Three Rounds in 2023 U.S. Championships

GM Dmitry Gurevich walks past the Girls' Junior board (courtesy Crystal Fuller/SLCC)

After two days, the 2023 U.S. Girls' Junior Championship (Girls') ran out of players with perfect scores. It only took one more day for the U.S. Junior Championship (Junior) and U.S. Senior Championship (Senior) to "catch up" to the Girls'. Dreams of any player running the tables with a perfect 9/9 score at the U.S. National Championships are officially over!

Today, WGM Jennifer Yu is back to share her favorite moments from the games at the World Chess Hall of Fame.

Junior

With GM Andrew Hong being held to a draw by IM Kirk Ghazarian, several players had a chance to catch up with decisive results. Instead, it was IM Arthur Guo who joined the pack chasing Hong by only a half-point, defeating GM Balaji Daggupati:

Some of the other most exciting games did not come from the top of the standings. But, this early in the event, there's plenty of times for the tables to turn. Take IM Justin Wang, for instance, who blew open the center in an instructive way:

Justin Wang ready to work his magic on the e-file (courtesy Lennart Ootes/SLCC)

Or, what about the mess in IM Josiah Stearman's game against FM Arthur Xu, who has managed to stay competitive in all three games as the lowest-rated player:

Today, Hong takes the white pieces against GM Abhimanyu Mishra in a game that will certainly determine who has the target on their back headed into the rest day.

Girls'

With four decisive results in the Girls', nature is healing after a freak accident round featuring five draws. FM Alice Lee shares the lead with 2½/3, handing Rose Atwell her first loss in the latter's "trial by fire" introduction to the SLCC.

Ruiyang Yan (R) was all smiles before the game, but Zoey Tang had the last laugh (courtesy Lennart Ootes/SLCC)

The most anticipated match-up, though, had to be FM Zoey Tang's game against FM Ruiyang Yan, and it did not disappoint. A roughly equal position slowly began to reveal its complexity just as the players approached the time control, and in the end, it was Tang scoring an upset over one of the pre-tournament favorites to join the lead:

Trailing Lee and Tang by a half-point are FM Rochelle Wu and IM Carissa Yip, the latter of whom finally managed to win her first game in this event:

She's heating up! Carissa Yip finally broke through (courtesy Crystal Fuller/SLCC)

Today, the leaders face off, with Lee taking the white pieces against Tang. Yan's game against Wu will also have a huge impact on the top of the leaderboard.

Senior

Entering the round, the Senior was the only event with multiple players on 2/2. But GM Melikset Khachiyan was held to a draw, and GM Gregory Kaidanov suffered a loss against pre-tournament ratings-favorite GM Vladimir Akopian. Akopian has won two in a row after his first-round loss to Khachiyan. GM Alexander Shabalov also bounced back from his loss yesterday to Kaidanov, joining the pack chasing the leaders.