2015 U.S. Junior Closed Championship

After the first three rounds of the tournament these two players were the leaders, and it was presumed that this 9th round matchup could potentially decide the tournament’s results. It turned out that this was true but not the way Awonder would have wanted it. In his last five games, Awonder was only able to score one point, compared to Akshat Chandra who was still leading the tournament.

Round eight featured the two leaders facing off in a pivotal game for this year’s U.S. Junior Championship. Chandra has maintained at least a shared lead throughout the entire tournament, while Shen’s 1 out 3 start was impressively improved upon with 4 consecutive wins.

Easily the most anticipated game of the tournament: Jeffrey Xiong vs. Akshat Chandra. In addition to being the two highest rated players of the tournament, the winner of this game was guaranteed at least a share of first place.

Arthur Shen is the only player in the tournament to have played all decisive games. The streak continued once again on round six! Going into the game, Mika Brattain, along with Xiong, was playing the most solid chess of the tournament.

Without a doubt, the game of the day was the match between Ruifeng Li and Akshat Chandra. Chandra went into the game today with a full point lead over the field, with an outstanding score of 3.5/4. Li, was looking to get back into contention with a win today. Li started out with his standard 1. e4 and Chandra responded with a different Sicilian today.