2016 U.S. Junior Closed

The final round of the U.S. Junior Championship was as exciting as one could have hoped for. The fight for first place was not decided until this round, and other top places were still within reach of several players.

The 8th round was a tepid round, with all the games ending in a draw within 4 hours of play. Nonetheless, the games had several exciting moments, but fatigue played an important role, as several players missed the opportunity to realize their advantage.

The 7th round showed the players were fatigued but still looking to give it their all. After 4 hours of play, not a single had been decided yet which set a new record in this year’s tournament.

After 5 hard fought rounds, the participants had the Wednesday off to prepare themselves for the second half of the tournament. Whereas most players stayed in and rested up, Kayden Troff had a busy schedule.

Achieving the grandmaster title is a huge feat. The hours spent every day studying, the days spent in airplanes, buses and airports just to travel to tournaments, the weeks spent at tournament halls, the months trying to perfect every strategy, truly are countless.

The fifth day at the U.S. Junior championship was nothing like the peaceful fourth round. With all five games delivering decisive results, It was a great game to play with the White pieces as the White players accounted for a sweet 4 out of 5 wins!

The fourth day at the U.S. Junior Chess Championship signified a peaceful day of chess. With four draws and only one win, fairly little change took place in the overall standings.

The third day at the U.S. Junior was a day of revenge! Whilst top-seed Jeffery Xiong managed to take the sole lead after outplaying Michael Bodek, both Awonder Liang and Nicolas Checa recovered from their second round losses.

After an eventful first round in which the players were praised for their fighting spirit by commentators. FM Aviv Friedman and GM Ben Finegold, expectations were high for the second round.

Ruifeng Li faced off top seed Jeffery Xiong in a closed Sicilian. Black was quickly faced with a pawn storm heading straight for his King, and tried to counter attack in the centre. When the 15 year old grandmaster missed an opportunity to scatter Ruifeng's centre, he found himself forced to sacrifice a pawn in order to complicate matters.