Two Nationals Begin in Louisiana

The Crescent City (actually Kenner, across the river) is hosting two championship opens this weekend. After three rounds of the US Senior Open, the heavily favored GM Alexander Ivanov has an unsurprising 3-0 tally and is tied for first with NM Steve Stoyko. IM Mark Ginsburg and FM Karl Dehmelt lead the eight-player 2½ score group. In a “pure open” such as this, masters typically don’t meet each other until the later rounds (there are three to go). In the top section (under age 21) of the US Junior Open, top seed Justin Wang (aged only 11) is 2-0, along with fellow Texan Bovey Liu, Michael Chen of Michigan, and Arthur Zhan Xu from Illinois (who notched a 291 point upset of Dax Webster). Among the 1½ group are the upset-minded WFM Joanna Liu and Julian Prolieko and the players with whom they respectively drew: Atulya Vaida and Rithik Polvaran. With 101 players, the Junior has multiple sections. Under 15 leaders currently are Rannon Huo, Jason Wang, and Benjamin Levy. Viswanth Yoganand, Mher Relan, Ian Schneider, Catherine Wang, Aradh Kaur, and Mason Emfinger are atop Under 11. And Aryan Surya, Kai Forbach, Shubh Hosad, Pulak Agarwalla, and Sara Gupta have perfect scores in Under 8. A final report including games will appear in a few days. Standings are updated at Senior: http://cajunchess.com/tourns/pastTourns/pastTourn_12.sht Junior: http://cajunchess.com/tourns/pastTourns/pastTourn_13.shtml