2016 Saint Louis Invitational

The 2016 Saint Louis Invitational ended with the same fighting chess seen throughout the whole tournament. The final round found FM Gauri Shankar needing a win to secure another IM norm as he faced off against FM Kostya Kavutskiy. As for the grandmaster norm tournament, IM Steven Zierk wanted to avenge his eighth round loss and pull even with IM Akshat Chandra for a share of first place.

IM Zierk played with the White pieces against GM Ben Finegold in a mainline Caro-Kann. Pressing for an advantage, Zierk sacrificed on h6 cracking open black’s kingside.

As the 2016 Saint Louis Invitational winds to a close, the players with hopes of gaining their norms found difficulty in Round 8. Three players still had a chance to earn GM norms going into the round. IM Steven Zierk had the Black pieces against IM Ruifeng Li and needed to win to keep his chances alive.

The 2016 Saint Louis Invitational, featuring both a GM and IM norm 10-player round robin, is more than halfway finished. Norm seekers in both sections have traded blows with their opponents and resulted in a very tight standings list. Each field’s norm requirement sits at 6.5 total points and still a few have the chance, if they finish well, to earn their norm.

After round seven of the 2016 Saint Louis Invitational, three players are still in contention to earn a GM norm. IM Irene Sukandar, IM Akshat Chandra, and IM Steven Zierk all stand at 4.5 points with two rounds to go. That means each needs to win their final two games to achieve the norm. Round 7 saw IM Sukandar play against IM Zierk in a tactical battle. Sukandar with the white pieces was able to covert an exchange French after Zierk overestimated the strength of an advanced d-pawn.