2012 U.S. Championships News

FM Luke Harmon-Vellotti sits atop the leaderboard with 2.5 points after three rounds.

By Brian Jerauld

SAINT LOUIS (June 17, 2013) -- On a day where separation was on the order, just the opposite was on the plate.

“This tournament hasn’t even started yet,” said IM Daniel Naroditsky after the third round of the 2013 U.S. Junior Closed Championship. “Everyone is at the same place.”

Now everybody is throwing punches at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis. Round 3 featured defeats of IM Victor Shen and FM Atulya Shetty, who had been the early frontrunners of the tournament heading into Sunday, and points on the board for both FM Jeffrey Xiong and WFM Sarah Chiang. Three draws on the day tightened the rankings instead of providing distance, as now seven players of the field of ten all sit within a point of each other.

FM Luke Harmon-Vellotti now stands alone on top with 2.5 points, after a win that has been two months in the making. Payback rang in the Idaho FIDE master’s mind as he took the chair across from FM Atulya Shetty for the second time, the first coming in the final round of the record-breaking 2013 K-12 Super Nationals last April. There, Shetty served Harmon-Vellotti a loss that not only disrupted the 14-year-old’s perfect 6-0 record, it also bounced him from the top spot to put Shetty in clear first. An instant rivalry.

“I really wanted revenge,” said Harmon-Vellotti, who will begin classes at UCLA in the fall after acing the math portion of his SATs. “I think having rivals is good for competition. They push you, give you something to focus on. Generally speaking, they help to spur better things.”

Shetty rolled out with an English attack and the game moved quickly through the first 14 moves, until Harmon-Vellotti knocked him from his prep with 14. … Nd8. The move looked to ready c6 and kick Shetty’s knight from the powerful d5, but Shetty retreated the knight willingly with 15. Ndc3 and Harmon-Vellotti’s response of 15. … c5 invited him right back in.

It brought a muddled and closed center where knights became the highlight, and Harmon-Vellotti found one to reign supreme. His 22. … Qb5 produced a fork for material advantage, but it brought much more. Shetty’s response of 23. b4 surrendered the pawn on d5, but also allowed Harmon-Vellotti’s knight a path toward a nasty outpost on e3. The position proved more valuable than the exchange, as the knight stayed put despite attacking Shetty’s rook for four moves. When it finally did move, 31. … Nd5, it produced a lethal discovery that left three of Shetty’s pieces attacked at once. Surrender came four moves later.

The tournament’s other leader IM Victor Shen, who had a perfect two points through two rounds, also stumbled with the white pieces in a marathon match versus Robert Perez. Shen’s e4 was met with a particularly sharp Najdorf line of the Sicilian, one Shen admitted that a lack of familiarity with helped aid his defeat.

Of particular focus was 12. Nxe7, a voluntary move from Chen that swung the pendulum heavily into Perez’ favor. While it did disrupt castling, the response of 12. … Ke7 put Perez’ monarch into perhaps an even cozier safe spot, as it never felt a whiff of danger for the rest of the game. It also made a streamline of mobility for Perez’ major pieces, which had a battery set just three moves later on the half-open c-file, beating down on Shen’s king.

“I don’t know what to say, I thought (12. Nxe7) was a good move, that I was getting two bishops,” Shen said. “But clearly, as the game showed, he gets a free attack out of it, and I get nothing. I traded my best piece for his worst piece. That’s not ideal.”

It pushed Shen’s forces into an extremely packed a1 corner and, with both a- and b-pawns charging, Perez looked to blow open the meager defenses. But Shen took advantage of some inaccuracies and played well with his back against the wall, ultimately wiggling free from the tight corner with minimal casualty. He finally traded his “piece of garbage” knight, which sat for 27 moves on the a1 corner, for a pawn and an opportunity to queen his a-pawn. Perez, however, offered some fantastic queen and knight work in the closing moves to secure the win.

Naroditsky discussed his decision to push forward into a draw against Harmon-Vellotti in round 2 as a “prudent decision,” but his draw against Kayden Troff in round 3 was more of a desperate cling. The two IMs paired off in one of the most anticipated matchups of the day, and despite the uneventful result, the game itself offered plenty of fireworks.

Naroditsky’s preparation knew of his opponent’s penchant for the Grunfeld, so he came at Troff with the Anti-Grunfeld System, refraining to play d4. All looked well for the California 17-year-old through the opening, until he decided he didn’t want to just pick a quiet fight with Troff. Instead, he put his head down and charged.

“I thought I would be making a statement with e5 and e6,” Naroditsky said about his 11^th and 12^th move, “but I missed a really nice refutation. I realized then that this wasn’t going to be so easy, and from there I was clinging to whatever I could cling to.”

Indeed, Troff was agile in his dodge of the premature attack, immediately swapping out the f3 knight and swallowing Naroditsky’s e-pawn. In four moves, Troff had completely unpacked his position, centralizing both knights with incessant harassment to the black queen. Though the loss of his d-pawn stacked Troff’s own d-file, a weakness Naroditsky would later recollect, his king cowered from several dangerous files and diagonals that Troff dominated for much of the game.

But Naroditsky held out, breaking the game down to a rook-and-pawn endgame and eventually converting his only remaining weakness – stacked and isolated e pawns – into a balanced position.

“All things considered, I’m happy to get away with a draw,” Naroditsky said. “I’m happy I didn’t collapse, as I have done in the past, happy with the fact that I was able to calm down and defend it.”

Both WFM Sarah Chiang and FM Jeffrey Xiong, scoreless through the first two rounds, were able to break the seal with draws in round 3. Chiang had white against FM Yian Liou and came with the Leningrad system in the Dutch defense. Though the center showed early signs of closing, it sprang open quickly by move 15, with both sides being relieved of their oft-problematic pawns in such positions – c4 for white, and d6 for black. The game stayed quiet throughout, mostly jockeying for better position between the two sides, and Chiang easily dealt with Liou’s only endgame threat in a passed pawn.

FM Sam Sevian played Xiong to a draw in a battle between the two youngest competitors in this year’s Juniors field – both 12 years old.  And after a round 2 match versus Perez, where Sevian played a race through theory that went 26 moves deep, he was relieved of such preparation versus Xiong in just one move: Sevian prepped fully for a Xiong’s c6 or c5 response, and instead got 1. … e6.

It did, conveniently, enter them both into a line they were equally unfamiliar with, a Winawar variation of the French defense. The game stayed closed and confusing throughout, with Sevian testing options around an “annoying” g7 outpost, according to Xiong. His response offered an exchange sacrifice, which Sevian accepted at 25. Bxg5, that dramatically opened up black’s forces and momentarily sent white reeling. Xiong eventually earned the exchange back with 32. … Bxd2+.

FM Jeffrey Xiong was unable to overcome the field's top seed, IM Daniel Naroditsky, in round one of the U.S. Junior Closed Championship.

By Brian Jerauld

SAINT LOUIS (June 15, 2013) -- There were just 15 minutes of focus at the opening ceremony of the 2013 U.S. Junior Closed Championship – when the players selected numbers to determine who would control the majority of the white or black pieces. But the impact of those selections were omnipresent through all of Friday at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis, when a decisive round 1 saw four of the five players playing white emerge victorious.

Only 15-year-old FM Yian Liou was able to claim a point with the black pieces, which he did against FM Sam Sevian. The two West Coast FIDE masters have become increasingly familiar with each other, including a split of the 2012 Metropolitan Closed tournament title, where each earned an IM norm. The past experiences prompted Liou to make some changes heading into Friday.

“I’ve played as black the past couple times [against Sevian],” Liou said. “And my record was pretty bad – I had to do something about it.”

What he did was deviate from his plan on move 2, leaving the Accelerated Dragon variation of the Sicilian by pushing g6 – entering into a Hyper-Accelerated Dragon line. Liou played all afternoon with heavy initiative on the queenside, keeping Sevian’s pieces relatively harmless until 26. c4, when his white bishop became all-but passive. Through the rest of the game, Liou delivered clean pressure to close. He eventually found his material advantage with a knight-rook exchange at 31. … Nxd5. Sevian looked for drawing chances with 33. f5, trying to completely close the board, but the accurate Qc8 response ensured that Liou would indeed break through.

“My first game is always my most nerve-racking game,” Liou said. “I have to get used to a new board, new clock, new pieces – and I also have to get used to playing in a tournament again. I can’t say this win makes me confident – just maybe comfortable, knowing I can do something with the black pieces.”

If there was one tough loss from Friday, it was suffered by IM Kayden Troff, the U-14 World Champion who played in Saint Louis last month in his first U.S. Championship. Troff, normally under the affliction of a permanent smile, instead wore his frustration after losing to FM Luke Harmon-Vellotti.

“I’m a bit upset that I lost,” Troff said. “I didn’t think I was losing, and I’m not sure where things went wrong.”

Troff’s analysis started deep in a game that opened up early and stayed sharp throughout. Suffering from time pressure that saw him under a minute, Troff swapped Harmon-Vellotti’s knight with 28. … Bxd6, leaving him to second-guess if Re2 would have been more sound. The trade allowed Harmon-Vellotti to coordinate his remaining two rooks into a battery that ultimately wrecked Troff’s queenside pawns and any hopes for a score.

“It’s going to be hard for anyone to get seven points here [at the U.S. Junior Closed Championship],” Troff said. “No matter if you lose, as long as you stay consistent, you should be able to pull through until the end. I’m just going to get up tomorrow and try for a win.”

It didn’t take long for FM Atulya Shelly to kick himself for faulty preparation on Friday. After the opening ceremony, the 2013 K-12 Supernational Champion took just a few glances at a possible 1. … b6 defense before skipping to another chapter, convincing himself: “He’s never going to play that.”

But indeed his opponent, Robert Perez, did respond with b6 – “just to annoy” Shetty – though it did not have such lasting results.

Despite his timely defensive surprise, Perez burned much of his clock through the opening, going into a deep think as early as move 6. But while his 7. … Bd6 left analysts scratching their heads, Shetty happily accepted the bishop trade to leave Perez with pawns stacked and isolated on the d-file. Even after Perez was able to gain a material advantage – Shetty’s own d-pawn on move 11 – black’s inherent weakness on the d-file left Shetty with little concern.

Perez’ time burning from the opening caught up with him by the endgame. By move 20, he still felt equal in the position, but admitted he had no idea on how to proceed. And by the last ten moves of the game, all his time-consuming consideration left him playing on the increment, eventually giving way to the worst of blunders: a knight fork on his king and queen.

IM Daniel Naroditsky, highest-rated competitor in the field, closed out a sound game against the lively FM Jeffrey Xiong. The two had met before at the Golden State Open, with Xiong claiming the point, but things would be different this time around. Where the first game fell into the Reti, Friday’s matchup went through a line of the Bogo-Indian.

And though Xiong followed some theory, his position out of the opening left him behind considerably in both space and time – and Naroditsky was awarded the advantage of the bishop pair.

“Out of the opening, I was in a slightly worse position, leaving [Daniel] with two bishops,” Xiong said. “After that I tried a few practical chances, but we went into an endgame where he was just better. He made some precise moves to finish the game.”

Xiong credited Naroditsky’s 10. Nd2 to wrecking his preparation, a move that took firm control of the e4 square and left Xiong’s pieces bottled up for much of the game. Naroditsky eventually converted his better position to material advantage with a convenient tactic (32. Rxg7 Kxg7 33. Bxe5+) that forked Xiong’s king and rook to earn a pawn.

Friday’s board 5 between IM Victor Shen and WFM Sarah Chiang saw the day’s most lopsided matchup. Chiang found her position weakened before even leaving the opening, due partially to an early 3. … Bb4 that left her bishop useless.  Her 12. … Qe7 suffered her first major bruise, a move she admittedly thought was playable for her position at the time – but did little more than bring the queen into the path of some of Shen’s best punches.

Chiang was already suffering material disadvantage just four moves later, and by move 19 she found her pieces in a near state of zugzwang, with no initiative. She resigned before her 22^nd move.

“I’m trying to keep a clear head – this month has been pretty rough on me,” said Chiang, who had visited the Saint Louis Chess Club in May as a competitor in the U.S. Women’s Championship. “My competition at the U.S. Women’s, most of them were maybe 100 points within my rating – some were even closer. But now I’m 200 points behind all of these players!

“It’s obviously great playing against stronger players, great for my chess as it just tests me better. For me, it’s just good experience just to be here – and I’m lucky to be here. We’ll see what I can salvage by the end.”