After a long final day, featuring two rapid playoffs and one blitz showdown, the 2022 U.S. Junior, Girls’ Junior, and Senior Championships are finally in the books. We have three new champions in GM Christopher Yoo, WGM Jennifer Yu, and GM Alexander Shabalov!
U.S. Junior Championship
With a ‘light’ four hours of work, GM Christopher Yoo was the first champion to be crowned.
Needing only a draw with Black against IM Carissa Yip, Yoo instead got a winning position after Yip went for an unsound piece sacrifice. After several nervy mistakes by both sides, the complications reduced into a balanced endgame, and a draw was eventually agreed after all.
Yoo finished with 7/9, a full point ahead of GM Andrew Hong, who ended the event with six points. Yoo will receive $12,000 in prize money, a $10,000 scholarship from the Dewain Barber Foundation and US Chess, and, most importantly, a spot in the 2022 U.S. Championship. A beaming Yoo was asked in his post-game interview how he plans to approach his first appearance in that prestigious event; he pointed out that “I really don’t have anything to lose!”
Incidentally, GM-elect David Brodsky lost to GM Abhimanyu Mishra, leaving Brodsky short of a final FIDE rating of 2500. Achieving this rating remains (for now) the final requirement for him to fulfill in order to earn the GM title.
U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship
Meanwhile, Girls’ Junior leader WFM Sophie Morris-Suzuki was facing a nightmare finale to their otherwise outstanding event, as they lost to WGM Thalia Cervantes Landeiro.
Like Cervantes Landerio, WGM Jennifer Yu entered the day’s play a full point behind Morris-Suzuki. And like Cervantes Landerio, Yu also won her game, setting up a three-way tiebreak playoff between the three players. This initial playoff consisted of a rapid round-robin at a time control of game in 10 minutes with a two-second delay.
Yu struck first, outplaying Morris-Suzuki despite a late-stage hiccup where Morris-Suzuki missed a chance to equalize. But then Yu herself was outplayed by Cervantes, leaving the outcome dependent on the final game Morris-Suzuki-Cervantes. With their back against the wall, Morris-Suzuki essayed the swashbuckling Evans Gambit to notch a powerful win, leaving the rapid round-robin completely tied!
This triggered a second round-robin at a faster time control of game in three minutes with a two-second delay.
This time Yu was merciless, beating Morris-Suzuki and Cervantes back-to-back to win the tournament. Her performance under pressure was incredible, especially when you consider that she trailed Morris-Suzuki by two full points after six rounds!
Afterwards Yu attributed her levelheadedness to having had prior playoff experience, and said that her approach to the blitz round-robin playoff was to “just pretend like none of this happened, and start over.”
Yu won $6,000 in prize money, a $10,000 scholarship from the Dewain Barber Foundation and US Chess, and a seat in the 2022 U.S. Women’s Championship. Of course, Yu is already a regular in the Women’s Championship, famously winning it in 2019 with an unprecedented 10/11 score.
U.S. Senior Championship
Five players — GMs Vladimir Akopian, Larry Christansen, Max Dlugy, Dmitry Gurevich, and Alexander Shabalov — shared the lead going into this final round, and as the day progressed, the commentary team of GM Cristian Chirila, WGM Dorsa Derakhshani, and GM Yasser Seirawan began speculating on just how many players might end up in a rapid tiebreak.
It turned out we got all five.
GM Vladimir Akopian was the strongest favorite to win, having White against the last-place GM Nick de Firmian. But Akopian had no winning chances throughout, and was even losing at some point. GMs Alexander Shabalov and Maxim Dlugy had a solid draw, and so the only missed opportunity for a clear winner was GM Larry Christiansen’s misconversion of a winning position against GM Dmitry Gurevich:
There was even a chance for last year’s Senior Champion GM Gregory Kaidanov (who entered the day’s play a half-point off the leaders) to join the playoff with a win, and indeed he was winning against IM Igor Khmelnitsky, but he spoiled matters with an endgame mistake and only drew.
The “fantastic five” now had to contest a rapid round-robin with a time control of game in 10 minutes with a two-second delay. Shabalov took an early lead by beating Dlugy in the first game, but Christiansen also beat Dlugy in a subsequent game, with all the other games to that point being drawn. Then Christiansen won again against Akopian, but Shabalov kept pace by beating Gurevich. The playoff had become a two-horse race, and it all came down to the final-round game, where Christiansen had White against Shabalov. Shabalov seized the initiative early on and maintained his advantage throughout the entire game, finally delivering mate. After nearly eight hours of play, Shabalov won the tournament!
Like Yu’s win in the Girls’ Junior tournament, Shabalov’s was a come-from-behind win. He had to win on demand against Christiansen in round eight, and then again in the playoff. For his efforts, he took home $20,000, and his second U.S. Senior Champion title (the first was in 2019).
In his post-game interview, Shabalov was visibly emotional. He pointed out that he had been playing tournaments virtually nonstop for the past six weeks, and that apparently it had “paid off.” He even added that it was “a good thing” that the playoffs started very soon after his ninth round game finished, and that he didn’t have time to go back to his hotel room in between. Apparently he lives on action!
As always, the team at the Saint Louis Chess Club did a masterful job putting on a top-notch event. Thanks to them, to the Dewain Barber Foundation (in conjunction with US Chess) for the Junior and Girls’ Junior scholarships, and to the players themselves, who exhibited uncommon fighting spirit throughout. And congratulations to our new champions!
Quick Links:
Complete, round-by-round event coverage on uschess.org
Event info (pairings, standings, and scholarship information) at uschesschamps.com
St. Louis Chess Club YouTube – daily stream at 1 p.m. Central
St. Louis Chess Club Twitch – daily stream at 1 p.m. Central
Live games at lichess.org:
Annotated games from US Chess (lichess study)
Categories
Archives
- October 2024 (10)
- September 2024 (23)
- August 2024 (27)
- July 2024 (44)
- June 2024 (27)
- May 2024 (32)
- April 2024 (51)
- March 2024 (34)
- February 2024 (25)
- January 2024 (26)
- December 2023 (29)
- November 2023 (26)
- October 2023 (37)
- September 2023 (27)
- August 2023 (37)
- July 2023 (47)
- June 2023 (33)
- May 2023 (37)
- April 2023 (45)
- March 2023 (37)
- February 2023 (28)
- January 2023 (31)
- December 2022 (23)
- November 2022 (32)
- October 2022 (31)
- September 2022 (19)
- August 2022 (39)
- July 2022 (32)
- June 2022 (35)
- May 2022 (21)
- April 2022 (31)
- March 2022 (33)
- February 2022 (21)
- January 2022 (27)
- December 2021 (36)
- November 2021 (34)
- October 2021 (25)
- September 2021 (25)
- August 2021 (41)
- July 2021 (36)
- June 2021 (29)
- May 2021 (29)
- April 2021 (31)
- March 2021 (33)
- February 2021 (28)
- January 2021 (29)
- December 2020 (38)
- November 2020 (40)
- October 2020 (41)
- September 2020 (35)
- August 2020 (38)
- July 2020 (36)
- June 2020 (46)
- May 2020 (42)
- April 2020 (37)
- March 2020 (60)
- February 2020 (38)
- January 2020 (45)
- December 2019 (35)
- November 2019 (35)
- October 2019 (42)
- September 2019 (45)
- August 2019 (56)
- July 2019 (44)
- June 2019 (35)
- May 2019 (40)
- April 2019 (48)
- March 2019 (61)
- February 2019 (39)
- January 2019 (30)
- December 2018 (29)
- November 2018 (51)
- October 2018 (45)
- September 2018 (29)
- August 2018 (49)
- July 2018 (35)
- June 2018 (31)
- May 2018 (39)
- April 2018 (31)
- March 2018 (26)
- February 2018 (33)
- January 2018 (30)
- December 2017 (26)
- November 2017 (24)
- October 2017 (30)
- September 2017 (30)
- August 2017 (32)
- July 2017 (27)
- June 2017 (32)
- May 2017 (26)
- April 2017 (37)
- March 2017 (28)
- February 2017 (30)
- January 2017 (27)
- December 2016 (29)
- November 2016 (24)
- October 2016 (32)
- September 2016 (31)
- August 2016 (27)
- July 2016 (24)
- June 2016 (26)
- May 2016 (19)
- April 2016 (30)
- March 2016 (37)
- February 2016 (27)
- January 2016 (33)
- December 2015 (25)
- November 2015 (23)
- October 2015 (16)
- September 2015 (28)
- August 2015 (28)
- July 2015 (6)
- June 2015 (1)
- May 2015 (2)
- April 2015 (1)
- February 2015 (3)
- January 2015 (1)
- December 2014 (1)
- July 2010 (1)
- October 1991 (1)
- August 1989 (1)
- January 1988 (1)
- December 1983 (1)