On Sunday, IM Daniel Naroditsky went clutch to win his final game of the 2013 U.S. Junior Closed Championship proving, once again, that slow and steady wins the race.
IM Daniel Naroditsky and FM Luke Harmon-Vellotti are tied for first with one round to go, but FM Sam Sevian lurks just a half point behind the leaders.
Naroditsky entered as the tournament’s highest-rated player and has played like it. As the last player standing without a loss, his approach to the tournament has been systematic.
FM Luke Harmon-Vellotti is back in clear first with 4.5/6, after the other co-leaders heading into round 6, IM Daniel Naroditsky and Robert Perez, failed to win.
Today marks the players’ rest day, and seven of the ten players still sit within a point of each other, now with three tied atop the standings at 3.5/5 points.
FM Luke Harmon-Vellotti entered atop the standings with 2.5/3 points, but he fell in glorious fashion to FM Samuel Sevian in round 4. The full-point victory was one of four on the day, with only one draw.
The World’s No. 1 ranked player, GM Magnus Carlsen, will battle GMs Levon Aronian, Hikaru Nakamura and Gata Kamsky for the Sinquefield Cup, September 9-15.
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.
After a completely decisive first round on Friday at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis, four out of five games on Saturday featured identical-score matchups, ensuring some early separation in the rankings.
At the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis, a decisive round 1 saw four of the five players playing white emerge victorious at the 2013 U.S. Junior Closed Championship.
