Paragua Claims Lead as National Championships Reach Rest Day

Capping off a week of fighting chess in the 2025 U.S. Junior, Girls’ Junior, and Senior Championships, we saw “only” six decisive results out of 15 games in Saturday’s fifth and final round before Sunday’s rest day.

GMs Andy Woodward and Vladimir Akopian maintained their leads in the Junior and Senior, respectively, while FM Megan Paragua emerged as the sole leader in the Girls’ Junior after top-seeded WGM Zoey Tang upset previous co-leader FM Ruiyang Yan with the black pieces in a model Sicilian.

Junior: Woodward leads still-leading GMs

The most peaceful of the sections featured only one decisive result, with last year’s runner-up IM Justin Wang upsetting GM Brewington Hardaway.

Justin Wang scored the first win against a GM in this year's Junior Championship (Photo courtesy of Crystal Fuller/SLCC)

The players collaborated to leave Bogo Indian Defense theory quite early, but Hardaway was a bit hesitant at crucial junctures with the black pieces, giving Wang an opportunity to claim first a space, and then a material, advantage.

Tournament leader Woodward survived a spot of trouble against IM Nico Chasin, and leads with a 4/5 score. GMs Kirk Ghazarian and Abhimanyu Mishra are only a half-point behind Woodward, while Hardaway now sits in clear fourth with 3/5. Wang’s win saw him join Chasin with an even score.

On Monday, Mishra gets the white pieces against Woodward in the first of several key matchups. Woodward has not played any of the three other GMs yet, so standings shake-ups are certainly possible in the event’s second half.

Graphic courtesy of SLCC

Girls’ Junior: Paragua emerges as Tang takes down Yan

12-year-old FM Megan Paragua emerged Saturday as the sole leader in the Girls’ Junior Championship, finishing the event’s first half with an undefeated 4/5 score.

One of only two pre-teens in the Girls' Junior Championship, Paragua capped off an undefeated first half with her third victory (Photo courtesy of Crystal Fuller/SLCC)

Yesterday, Paragua’s win over previous leader FM Rose Atwell saw her survive some trouble with the white pieces against Atwell’s well-prepared French Defense, but patience mixed with superior clock management netted her the full point.

Entering the fifth round, FM Ruiyang Yan was the sole leader with a 3½/4 score, while top-seeded WGM Zoey Tang had just scored her first win of the event to reach a plus score. But, in their head-to-head match-up, Tang posed questions early and often to win with the black pieces.

After three draws to start the event, top-seeded Zoey Tang is now in joint second after her second consecutive win (Photos courtesy of Crystal Fuller/SLCC)

In the third and final decisive game of the Girls’ Junior, WFM Rachael Li defeated WFM Laurie Qiu in a vicious attack out of a flank-pawn opening that would make a long history of hypermodern aficionados from Larsen to Jobava proud.

Yan and Tang share second place with 3½/5 scores, each a half-point behind Paragua, On Monday, it’s Yan – Paragua in a key matchup for the leaderboard.

Li moves into a tie for fourth alongside Jasmine Su and WIM Iris Mou after Su drew WGM Rochelle Wu in a rollercoaster of a game and Mou survived a brief scare against WIM Chloe Gaw to hold a draw of her own.

Graphic courtesy of SLCC

Senior: Akopian still in clear first, barely

After a quick draw as Black against GM Igor Novikov, defending champion GM Vladimir Akopian maintained his lead heading into the rest day of the Senior championship with an undefeated 3½/5 score. GMs Larry Christiansen and Alexander Goldin are each a half-point behind Akopian with 3/5 scores after drawing their head-to-head match-up in dramatic fashion.

GM Alex Fishbein pulled himself back to an even score with his fourth decisive result out of five games, this time defeating GM Gregory Kaidanov in a tense, rich Exchange French Defense.

In Kaidanov – Fishbein (closest board to camera), Fishbein (rear) kept grinding deep into an endgame to win his second game of the week and reach an even score (Photo courtesy of Crystal Fuller/SLCC)

The only other decisive game was IM Timothy Taylor’s upset over GM Maxim Dlugy, where the latter got impatient after pressing a slight initiative for much of the game against the lowest rated player in the field.

Akopian has yet to play either Christiansen or Goldin, but he will have the white pieces against Goldin on Monday.