Two Rounds in the Books at 2022 K-12

The first two rounds of the 2022 K-12 Grade Championships are in the books, and Saturday’s third round of action is underway. While most of the top players made it through the first day unscathed, there were a few blips and near-misses.

Two of the top players in the 11th and 12th grade sections were nicked for draws.

Nicolas De La Colina could not break the defenses of Meilin Hoshino, and in fact, the Floridian was fortunate to split the point after a mistake on move 40.

11th Grade top seed IM Maximillian Lu will rue a hasty decision on move 33 that dropped a half-point against Henry Burton.

Eighth graders Eshan Guha and Daniel Mero played a sophisticated Catalan, and it looked like Mero might hold against a player who outrates him by nearly 400 points.

Guha versus Mero (photo David Llada)

But after some mutual mistakes as the game ground on, Mero wrongly (but bravely) played for the win and was punished for it.

Zohran Vannali gave fifth grade top seed Andrew Jiang everything he could handle in their second-round matchup.

Jiang versus Valliani (photo David Llada)

The resulting knight ending was fascinating, with a study-like path to equality that, unfortunately for Vannali, only appears in the analysis.

Not all of the excitement came in the second round. Here, on the second board of the 12th grade section, 1235-rated Makhi Williams nearly struck an early blow against 2267-rated Nathaniel Moor.

After shattering the Black kingside with a correct exchange sacrifice, he missed one nuance, allowing Moor to marshal his defenses and win the game.

With the third round well underway as this goes to press, there will surely be more upsets as the pressure ratchets up. Who will survive the gauntlet and claim the winners' medals? We’ll know a lot more about this when our next report goes up Sunday morning

So much to do!

Perhaps you aren’t one of the nearly 2,500 players hard at work at the K-12. There’s plenty for you to do as well.

GM Elshan Moradiabadi will offer a lecture and take questions at 11:30 a.m. in Camellia 3-4. At 2:30 p.m. he resumes his “all-comers” blitz in Prince George’s Exhibit BC.

There are also two Friends and Family tournaments running today, one rated and one unrated.

The Girls Club is in full swing in Chesapeake 1-3. Saturday’s highlights include a meet and greet with two U.S. women's champions at 10:30 a.m., a human chess game at 11:30 a.m., and a teen pizza party at 4 p.m.!

If you are interested in learning more about the governance of scholastic chess in America, check out the Scholastic Committee meeting at 2:15 p.m. in Camella 3-4.

Our livestream begins tonight with the fifth round. WGM Sabina Foisor and FM Gauri Shankar will bring you all the action on the US Chess Twitch channel at 6 p.m. They return twice on Sunday for the critical sixth and seventh rounds. Follow all the action on-site at the DGT Projection site in the skittles room (Prince George’s Exhibit BC).

Let us know what’s going on by sharing your pictures and video on social media. Use the hashtag #k12chesschamps and we’ll retweet the best of what we see!