The US Junior Championships have ended with Awonder Liang a clear winner in the championship section and Carissa Yip of Andover a winner by a point over second-place finisher Jennifer Yu in the girls championship. We congratulate Carissa on her fine victory! I became a little bit nervous when she lost a terrible game to Sophie Morris-Suzuki (who was 0/5 at that point) in the sixth round, but she righted the ship, winning her next two games and managing a draw in the last round against Jennifer Yu to take the title and $3,000, I believe Carissa is the first girl from Massachusetts to win the US Girls’ Junior Championship.
In the championship, Awonder was never really pushed, especially with his main rival, Ruifeng Li, finishing a surprising seventh. This is the 15-year-old Wisconsinite’s second time winning the title. For his effort Awonder earned $6,000. Lexington’s Mika Brattain finished in tie for seventh-eighth.
The US Women’s Olympiad has also been announced: GM Irina Krush, IM Anna Zatonskih, WGM Tatev Abrahamyan, FM Jennifer Yu, WGM Sabina Foisor, Coach: GM Robert Hess, Captain: GM Melikset Khachiyan. It’s not clear why the US women’s champion, Nazi Paikidze, is missing, and Annie Wang just missed out on rating. Best of luck to them to improve on their sixth-place finish from 2016, but it will be struggle against the Chinese, Russian, Indian, and Ukrainian women.
The Russian Chess Federation also released its Olympiad teams. Their Open team is missing for the first time in many years veterans Peter Svidler and Alexander Grischuk. This has been taken as attempt by the RCF to mix things up as Russia has not won the event since 2002. The team is Vladimir Kramnik, Sergey Karjakin, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Dmitry Jakovenko, and Nikita Vitiugov. The women’s team is the same group that had troubles in 2016 (4th), Alexandra Kosteniuk, Valentina Gunina, Aleksandra Goryachkina, Natalija Pogonina, and Olga Girya.
Coming events: Aug. 4, Boylston August Quads, Cambridge, www.BoylstonChess.org; Aug. 3, 10, 17, 24, 31 Billerica Friday Night Swiss, Billerica Chess Club, Council on Aging, 25 Concord Road, Billerica, Director6@MassChess.org
Recent results: 14th CEK Scholastic Tournament, U1200, 1st-3rd, Franklin Lewis, Armaan Mehta, Joanne Zhou, 3/4, U800, 1st- 2nd: Jesse Zhang, Keshav Sundar, 3.5.4; U400, 1st, Ethan Oder, 4/4
Answer to today’s problem: 1.f5! closing the net round Black’s king. Now there is no good way to stop the mating sequence of 2.Rh3+ Kg7 3.Rdh8 4.R3h7#
Chris Chase can be reached at BostonGlobeChessNotes@gmail.com.
