Skip to content
  • Watch Live
  • 2025
    • 2025 Champions Showdown: The Kings
    • 2025 American Cup
    • 2025 Spring Chess Classic
    • 2025 Cairns Cup
  • Menu
    • Home
    • News
    • Recaps
    • Photos
    • Videos
    • Where Are They From
    • Contact Us
  • Watch Live
  • 2025
    • 2025 Champions Showdown: The Kings
    • 2025 American Cup
    • 2025 Spring Chess Classic
    • 2025 Cairns Cup
  • Menu
    • Home
    • News
    • Recaps
    • Photos
    • Videos
    • Where Are They From
    • Contact Us

U.S. CHESS CHAMPS

HOME OF U.S. CHAMPIONSHIP CHESS & THE COUNTRY’S TOP PLAYERS

Round 3 Recap – U.S. Junior, Girls’ Junior & Senior Championship

Share

Round three saw a couple of the leaders get knocked off as well as numerous entertaining battles. Noteworthy results included leaders GMs Larry Christiansen and Awonder Liang getting knocked off by GM Alex Yermolinsky and IM Joshua Sheng respectively. Rochelle Wu, on the other hand, won a third game in a row and is 3-0 in the Girls’ section. Let’s break down the action.

U.S. Junior Championship

Brandon Jacobson, with the white pieces, won two pawns out of the opening against Atulya Vaidya. It looked like he was on the road to an easy victory, but he got seduced into sacrificing a rook for an attack. Brandon miscalculated, however, and was forced to draw the game with a perpetual check.

Andrew Tang gained a nice pawn structure advantage against Hans Niemann. Hans defended well, however, and eventually the players agreed to a draw in a balanced knight endgame. Craig Hilby found himself under fire right out of the opening against John Burke. Burke lost his way, however, and then Hilby was the one in the driver’s seat. Unfortunately for him, Craig struggled to take advantage, and they eventually agreed to a draw in a rook endgame.

Jennifer Yu played an exchange slav against Nicolas Checa, and while in the confessional booth she said that she expected a quieter game, that’s not what happened. She sacrificed a piece for three pawns, but her pawns proved not to be super impactful, and eventually Nicolas converted his extra knight. Top seed and tournament leader Awonder Liang played some unusual ideas in a Spanish as White against Joshua Sheng, but it didn’t work out well and he found himself in a difficult situation. While he certainly had chances at some point, eventually he dropped two pawns, and Joshua took the full point in convincing fashion.

GM Awonder Liang went on a walkabout just before move 40 and couldn’t quite recover

U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship

Carissa Yip had a clear positional advantage against Ruiyang Yan’s Sicilian, but Black defended quite well. Carissa allowed the game to simplify too much, and the players agreed to a draw in a balanced endgame. Veronika Zilajeva won a pawn as Black in a French Defense against Martha Samadashvili, but allowed White’s queen to penetrate her position. Martha found a beautiful pawn sacrifice, and delivered mate shortly after.

Emily Nguyen outplayed Maggie Feng with the black pieces, and converted her advantage in convincing fashion. This was her second win in a row. Rachael Li was holding her own against Thalia Cervantes, and the game looked to be heading towards a draw for the longest time. Rachael lost her way in a bishop ending, however, and Thalia was merciless in bringing home the point.

Rochelle Wu had nice opening advantage against Agata Bykovtsev’s Najdorf, but she went astray by allowing Agata to capture her dark-squared bishop. Black was clearly winning, but Bykovtsev got low on time, and ended up missing a nice resource that allowed Rochelle to give checkmate. This win put Wu on an incredible 3-0 score.

Rochelle was in serious trouble against Agata, but she looked completely unfazed throughout

U.S. Senior Championship

Maxim Dlugy had a normal position as Black against the Slav, but at an unfortunate moment he allowed Gregory Kaidanov to steal a pawn. Max is a tricky customer to finish off, and Gregory went astray by allowing Black to capture his b-pawn, after which the players agreed to a draw in short order.

Alex Goldin seemed to have a difficult position against Jaan Ehlvest, but in mutual time pressure neither player wanted to take excessive risk, and a draw was agreed on move 31. Alex Shabalov and Igor Novikov played an extremely complex Najdorf. Igor navigated the complications quite well for some time, but one slip allowed Shabba to capitalize and convert into a won position, which he converted well.

Alex Fishbein and Joel Benjamin were involved in a sharp tussle, and at some point Alex seemed to have great chances to win. Joel navigated his way to a pawn down ending, and expertly held it after a couple missteps by the White player. Tournament leader Larry Christiansen took excessive risks as Black against Alex Yermolinsky, but he found himself in a difficult position soon after. Yermo played very well to convert his positional edge into victory.

You have to tip your hat to Alex Yermolinsky, who won a nice game against Christiansen

Round 4 Pairings

Round four starts today at 1pm. Tune in at 12:50pm central time for live commentary by GMs Robert Hess, Jesse Kraai, and WGM Tatev Abrahamyan on uschesschamps.com

  • 2019 U.S. Junior Senior Championships, Recap

Menu

  • Home
  • News
  • Recaps
  • Photos
  • Videos
  • Where Are They From
  • Contact Us

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE

  • SAINTLOUISCHESSCLUB.ORG
  • GRANDCHESSTOUR.ORG
  • WORLDCHESSHOF.ORG
  • QBOUTIQUESTL.COM

Past Events

2025
  • 2025 Spring Chess Classic
  • 2025 American Cup
  • 2025 Champions Showdown: The Kings
2024
  • 2024 U.S. National Championships
  • 2024 Spring Chess Classic
  • 2024 Cairns Cup
  • 2024 Summer Chess Classic
  • 2024 American Cup
  • Today in Chess: 2024 FIDE Candidates
2023
  • 2023 American Cup
  • 2023 Cairns Cup
  • 2023 Saint Louis Super Swiss
  • 2023 Spring Chess Classic
  • 2023 Summer Chess Classic
  • 2023 U.S. Championships
  • 2023 U.S. National Championships
  • 2023 Winter Classic
2022
  • 2022 U.S. Championships
  • 2022 Champions Showdown: Chess 9LX
  • 2022 Fall Chess Classic
  • 2022 U.S. Senior Championship
  • 2022 U.S. Junior Championship
  • 2022 U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship
  • Today in Chess: 2022 FIDE Candidates
  • 2022 Summer Chess Classic
  • 2022 Saint Louis Norm Congress
  • 2022 American Cup
  • 2022 Spring Chess Classic
2021
  • 2021 U.S. Championships
  • 2021 U.S. Senior Championship
  • 2021 U.S. Junior Championships
2020
  • Today in Chess: 2020 FIDE Candidates
  • 2020 U.S. Championships
  • 2020 Champion Showdown: Chess 9LX
  • 2020 Saint Louis Rapid & Blitz
  • 2020 Clutch Chess: International
  • 2020 Clutch Chess: USA
  • 2020 Cairns Cup
2019
  • 2019 Saint Louis Invitational
  • 2019 Winter Chess Classic
  • 2019 Midwest Collegiate
  • 2019 Fall Chess Classic
  • 2019 Champions Showdown: Chess 9LX
  • 2019 U.S. Senior Championship
  • 2019 U.S. Junior Championship
  • 2019 U.S. Girls Junior Championship
  • 2019 Summer Chess Classic
  • 2019 Saint Louis Norm Congress
  • 2019 U.S. Championships
  • 2019 US Collegiate Rapid & Blitz
  • 2019 Spring Chess Classic
  • 2019 Champions Showdown: The Kings
  • 2019 Cairns Cup
2018
  • 2018 TiC: World Championship
  • 2018 Saint Louis Invitational
  • 2018 Winter Classic
  • 2018 Fall Chess Classic
  • 2018 Champions Showdown
  • 2018 U.S. Junior Championships
  • 2018 Summer Chess Classic
  • 2018 U.S. Championships
  • 2018 Today in Chess: Candidates
  • 2018 Spring Chess Classic
  • 2018 Saint Louis Norm Congress
2017
  • 2017 Winter Chess Classic
  • 2017 Saint Louis Winter Invitational
  • 2017 Saint Louis Invitational
  • 2017 Champions Showdown
  • 2017 Fall Chess Classic
  • 2017 Saint Louis Rapid & Blitz
  • 2017 Sinquefield Cup
  • 2017 Match of the Millennials
  • 2017 U.S. Junior Championship
  • 2017 U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship
  • 2017 Your Next Move
  • 2017 Paris GCT
  • 2017 Spring Chess Classic
  • 2017 U.S. Championship
  • 2017 U.S. Women's Championship
2016
  • 2016 Saint Louis Autumn Invitational
  • 2016 Champions Showdown
  • 2016 Sinquefield Cup
  • 2016 U.S. Junior Closed
  • 2016 Saint Louis Invitational
  • 2016 U.S. Championships
  • 2016 U.S. Women's Championship
2015
  • 2015 Showdown in Saint Louis
  • 2015 U.S. Championships
  • 2015 U.S. Junior Closed Championship
  • Kasparov vs Short
2014
  • 2014 Sinquefield Cup
2013
  • 2013 Sinquefield Cup
  • 2013 U.S. Championships
  • 2013 U.S. Junior Closed Championship

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE

  • Contact Us
  • Legal
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Contact Us
  • Legal
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms and Conditions

© 2011-2025 Saint Louis Chess Club All rights reserved