2019 U.S. Junior Senior Championships

SAINT LOUIS (July 22, 2019) – The national junior and senior chess championships have concluded in Saint Louis, the nation’s Chess Capital, with 16-year-old Awonder Liang taking home the U.S. Junior Championship, another 16-year-old, Carissa Yip, winning the U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship and U.S. Chess Hall-of-Famer Alex Shabalov beating out a field that included four other hall-of-famers to be crowned the first-ever U.S. Senior Champion.

SAINT LOUIS (June 10, 2019) – This summer marks a hallmark first for Saint Louis, America’s Chess Capital, as the Saint Louis Chess Club will host national championships showcasing the best of American junior and senior chess. For the first time-ever, the U.S. Senior Championship - an invitation-only tournament for the top 10 players in the United States over 50 years old - will run simultaneously with the U.S. Junior and U.S. Girls’ Junior Championships from July 10-20, 2019.

The final round was a nailbiter, as all the champions had plenty of tense moments. Awonder Liang was on the ropes in his classical game, but managed to draw after a blunder by Andrew Tang, then had to win a tense playoff against Nicolas Checa.

Today’s round was easily the most wild, as many games in all sections had numerous won positions turned into drawn or even lost ones. A few even turned two or three times! Awonder Liang beat Jennifer Yu with the black pieces, but it was anything but a straightforward affair.

This round was another exciting affair in all three sections. Awonder Liang made a move on the leaders by winning a nice game, but Nicolas Checa outplayed Joshua Sheng in a balanced ending to maintain a half point lead. Rochelle won her nicest game of the event against Thalia Cervantes, but Carissa Yip also managed to win, leaving her in the lead by half a point.

Round six was a mixed affair, as some of the leaders maintained their positions while others got knocked off.

All three sections had their share of interesting games, though the Juniors were definitely the most bloodthirsty

Today’s round had a lot of action in all sections. Nicolas Checa took the lead with a fine victory over Andrew Tang. Both Rochelle Wu and Carissa Yip won topsy-turvy games, and seem to be running away in the Girls’ tournament with 4/4 and 3.5/4 respectively.

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

While round one had a lot of blunders and quick victories, the players seemed to settle down for round two.There were several long, tough battles, and the players in all sections showed they were willing to fight it out to the very end.