2012 U.S. Championships News

Kayden Troff defeated Matt Larson in the final round to win the 2014 U.S. Junior Closed Championship.

By Brian Jerauld

SAINT LOUIS (June 30, 2014) -- When in doubt, just win out.

GM Kayden Troff, the 16-year-old phenom out of Utah, has won the 2014 U.S. Junior Closed Championship in clear first with an impressive 7/9 score, grabbing the national championship for players under 21 by finishing 1.5 points ahead of the field. For his efforts, Troff has won the top prize of $3,000, as well as an invitation to the 2015 U.S. Championship.

“I’m really excited,” Troff said. “This moment has come and gone a few times, where I’ve been excited before and missed. I have just always seemed to struggle in this tournament specifically -- for it to be official and done, it’s a pretty good feeling.”

In his fourth appearance in the Junior Closed, Troff entered as the tournament’s top seed and only grandmaster, ultimately tallying six wins across the 10-player, round-robin event. That is twice the amount of victories Troff has recorded in preceding Junior Championships, his previous-best score coming last year at 4.5/9.

And despite the strong finish, Troff’s new title was anything but certain until the end -- especially after his fifth-round loss to FM Michael Bodek knocked him down into a tie for third place entering the rest day.

“My loss to Michael was a tough moment to get through; it just changed everything,” Troff said. “Everything was going quite well for me before that, and it was just this sudden shift of momentum. Trying to come back from that was probably my hardest moment.”

Troff apparently found zen on the rest day, however, returning to win out the rest of the tournament in convincing fashion. To get back to the top, Troff was forced to go right through it: Both his sixth- and seventh-round opponents, IMs Luke Harmon-Vellotti and Jeffrey Xiong, were tournament leaders at the time. And though a late surge by Bodek brought him within a half-point, Troff handled his own fate just fine by taking down FM Josh Colas and then the feisty NM Matt Larson in the final two rounds. Troff’s impressive score comes out of an extremely hard-fought Junior Closed Championship that featured 33 decisions across 45 games -- and most of the draws were bitter fights to the end.

“I think this tournament makes a good statement on where the U.S. is headed in chess,” Troff said. “All these good players who all play so well, I have so much respect for them. Even Matt Larson, even though he was the lowest-rated by quite a bit, showed his guns and brought it to this tournament.

“Going in, even though people might have thought I was supposed to win this, once the tournament started I have to admit I was a little scared. Everyone was fighting, and even the draws were long and hard fought.”

Winning the national crown caps off an impressive month for Troff, who just earned his new grandmaster title at the Chicago Open and continues to grow as one of America’s ambassadors of chess. The 16-year-old is a promising member of the Young Stars - Team USA program partnership with the Kasparov Chess Foundation, which provides coaching and other support, and is partly responsible for padding more than 200 points to his rating over the last two years. Days before arriving in St. Louis for the Junior Closed, Troff and the Young Stars visited Washington D.C. for the second time to help promote the educational benefits of chess to Congress.

“This has all been so exciting; I’m grateful for it all,” Troff said. “Okay, I’m one of the top players in the country now, yet before all this started I was just some kid from Utah who was pretty good at chess. But I still feel that way: Just some kid from Utah who is pretty good at chess. I just want to work hard and keep it going; all of these opportunities and things that are happening around me, I can only be grateful.”

Bodek (5.5/7) finished in a tie for second with Troff’s fellow Young Star IM Sam Sevian, who scored 4.5 in his last five rounds after suffering three losses in his first four. Xiong (5/7), another Team Stars member, finished in clear fourth after the leading the tournament in its entirety, until Troff knocked him down in round 7.

Final Results

IM Luke Harmon Vellotti fell to GM Kayden Troff in round 6, and then Troff followed that up with a victory over tourney leader IM Jeffrey Xiong (not pictured) in round 7.

By Brian Jerauld

SAINT LOUIS (June 28, 2014) -- For the 2014 U.S. Junior Closed, GM Kayden Troff decided to change up his tournament strategy -- on the only day he didn’t play chess.

The top seed of the event began his 2014 campaign claiming the expected headlines after taking an early lead in the standings, but then his focus seemed to waver. Back-to-back draws made him momentarily fall out of the limelight and then, literally, the worst: A loss to FM Michael Bodek -- and on the day before the break.

He needed a change.

“I’ve always said: Going into the rest day with a loss is just terrible -- just an entire day to sit around and think about it,” Troff said. “But this year, I turned it into a huge benefit for me. Clear my head, do some fun things and relax, try to come into the second part of the tournament as if it was a new tournament. I just wanted to try and start over.”

The reset button has been pushed. Troff (5/7) emerged from Wednesday’s rest day and walked straight into clear first, by using the most direct line possible: Stepping on literally everyone in his way. Troff has put together two consecutive victories, first over IM Luke Harmon-Vellotti and then Friday on top of IM Jeffrey Xiong -- both of whom shared the tournament lead during the rest day.

His hard work up front places the onus directly on those who chase him, as Troff’s remaining two games in the round-robin format come against the tournament’s two lowest-rated players.

Meanwhile, after the seventh-round loss, Xiong (4.5/7) finds himself without a share of the lead for the first time all tournament -- and also finds himself immediately tested for his share of second place. Today Xiong takes the white pieces against Bodek (4.5/7), who has surged into a tie for second with 3 points over his last four rounds, including Friday’s win over Harmon-Vellotti in a third-place fight.

Friday afternoon delivered the 2014 U.S. Junior Closed it’s longest, yet most-exciting day of chess throughout, another to feature decisions in four out of five games. IM Aleksandr Ostrovskiy (3.5/7) joins a four-way tie for fourth after a slow and stubborn smothering of FM Arthur Shen in a 106-move, six-hour epic; and FM Justus Williams outmuscled FM Josh Colas in their latest chapter of the New York rivalry. The seventh round’s only draw came in a dramatic back-and-forth fight between IM Sam Sevian (3.5/7) and NM Matt Larson, the tournament’s lowest-rated player who has turned in 2.0 points against three of the tournament’s top-four seeds -- and still with a ninth-round meeting with Troff on Sunday.

Crosstable after Round 7

Throughout the 2014 event, Troff had seen Xiong arrive daily and blast his opponents with opening over-preparation -- and he looked to remove that advantage early with 5. Nbd2 in a Catalan.

“From what I’ve seen from Jeffrey, especially in this tournament, is he prepares very specifically for his opponents,” Troff said. “I just wanted to avoid all that, take him out of his preparation with this Nbd2 move, which I’ve never really played. Maybe it’s not the best move, but to get someone out of their prep is sometimes more of a benefit than playing the best line.”

The strategy worked, with Troff’s gambit offer accepted at 5...dxc4, sending Xiong into fresh territory. Compensation for the sacrifice was apparent immediately, as white quickly developed while black stayed busy tending to a clog of queenside pawns. The awkward opening set a theme for the rest of Xiong’s afternoon.

As expected between two of the tournament’s highest seeds, both veterans to the annual Junior Closed event, the game’s mistakes were not centered around material loss but instead positional malfunctions. The players agreed Xiong’s troubles started with 11...Be7, a confusing move backwards and a vital loss of tempo in a position that already lagged behind. Troff was able to break open the queenside clog with his a-pawn, who helped recover the gambit plus one with 16. Qxc4. Black soon after sacrificed the exchange, but compensation was too little, too late.

Losing, Xiong went for broke with a late charge at white’s castled king with 22...f4 and began circling his remaining forces for an attack. But it was all technique for Troff, who traded off bishops and eventually black’s remaining rook. After a brief king walk, Troff found his way to a queen trade that sealed his advantage.

Promising to shake up the top of the standings even further was the third-place battle between Bodek and Harmon-Vellotti, a result that continued the momentum of both players headed in opposite directions. For a long while, however, Bodek’s victory was well in doubt.

Harmon-Vellotti got everything he wanted out of the opening, pushing black through a French Exchange and allowing 7. cxd5 without immediate recapture. Instead, black used the extra tempo to completely unpack his attack, using pins to issue early restraint on two of white’s minor pieces. Harmon-Vellotti reclaimed his material at 23...Nxd5.

The middlegame was a slow positional wrestle, one that Bodek began to lose on the board, but another that Harmon-Vellotti began to lose on his clock. In time trouble, Harmon-Vellotti won a pawn with 37...Bxb3, but overlooked a combination of white queen checks that dropped two of his own.

“I realized objectively I was worse, and all I was trying to do was prevent the knockout blow and avoid losing immediately,” Bodek said. “I was a lot worse, and I got a little lucky in a time scramble before the first time control, finding a trick that got me back into the game and gave me the edge.”

The queen-and-pawn endgame kept the match tense through its finale, though Bodek patiently saw his advantage through. He sacrificed his a-pawn to allow his passed d-pawn a sprint to the seventh rank, then thrust Harmon-Vellotti into zugzwang with 78. f4.

The 2014 U.S. Junior Closed Championship enters its final weekend, with two rounds remaining on Saturday and Sunday at 1:00 p.m. CST. The rounds will be streamed live at www.uschesschamps.com, with commentary, analysis and player interviews by GM Ben Finegold and FM Aviv Friedman.