Le and Stukopin win Bay Area International

Bay Area International 2019 

Burlingame is a small city on the San Francisco Bay, south of San Franciso itself, which was founded after the devastating 1906 earthquake. It is known as the "City of Trees" thanks to its more than 18,000 public trees — they had the foresight to prohibit cutting them down back when the city was incorporated. Over a hundred players, most of them titled, took part in this year's Bay Area International tournament. Among the highly-rated grandmasters was top see Le Quang Liem (#32 in the world on the January list). The Vietnamese grandmaster resides in St. Louis (formerly a student at Webster University) as do a host of foreign grandmasters in the USA.

Thanks to a late surge, Le was able to pull even with GM Andrey Stukopin, a student at University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, to tie for first with 7.0/9. Both earned USD $4,000 for their efforts. Seven players trailed by half a point including GMs Lazaro Bruzon, Dariusz Swiercz, Emilio Cordova, Alejandro Ramirez, Karthik Venkataraman and Bartlomiej Macieja who each took home $500.

Yoo who?

The sensation of the tournament's first half, however, was Christopher Woojin Yoo. The 12-year-old American with Korean roots started as No. 46 with an Elo rating of 2388, and yet after five rounds he was in shared first with 4 points, neck and neck with a pack of ten players — eight grandmasters, one international master and Yoo.

Three of his four points came against grandmasters! In the second round, however, he needed a little luck to secure the draw, because in the following position GM Tanguy Ringoir missed a chance to win:

The surprise of the week followed in the third round as Yoo defeated the top-seeded GM Le. Against Le's the Caro-Kann defence, he chose an obscure variation which resulted in an isolani structure. In the middlegame, Yoo sacrificed a piece in a slightly worse position and was ultimately rewarded for it. It turns out that even very strong players make mistakes when they are put under pressure and have to defend.

The Fashionable Caro-Kann Vol.1

The dynamic play based on a strong strategic foundation has always fascinated me, and in these DVDs I have suggested the lines which I personally prefer and employ in practice.

Christopher Woojin Yoo | Foto: David Llada/American Chess Magazine

In the fourth round, You followed up with another victory against a grandmaster. The victim this time was Peter Prohaszka. The 27-year-old Hungarian avoided theory by playing a double-fianchetto with White, then sacrificed an exchange right out of the opening, but did not get much compensation for it. Gradually Yoo developed a winning position, but Prohaszka found a very tricky second exchange sac that actually got him set up for perpetual check. But in a truly confusing position, a few inaccuracies from White let Yoo's king escape.

The fifth round was a hard-fought draw against Alejandro Ramirez, who is known to many readers of this site for his various video series for ChessBase. In a Ruy Lopez, Ramirez quickly lured his young opponent into new theoretical territory and Yoo made a mistake with a premature pawn push in the centre. Ramirez could have besieged the white e4 pawn, but after one or two inaccuracies, the game leveled out to a draw.

Click or tap the second game in the list to switch

The Ragozin Defense

The Ragozin is being played by every top grandmaster in the world - it is time you also add it to your repertoire to get interesting and dynamic positions against 1. d4!
GM Alejandro Ramirez analyses every single move that White can play once the Ragozin is reached, but due to several transpositional possibilities he always emphasises strategic goals to keep in mind.

It is obvious that Yoo, who is accompanied by his father to tournaments, has a great future ahead of him. His coaches include the strong grandmasters Boris Avrukh and Zviad Izoria. He is one of a number of young American talents who regularly attend classes at the Kasparov Chess Foundation and get to learn from Garry himself. In the world rankings, Yoo is the #2 of his year (2006) behind Gukesh D (India), who just before Christmas at the Sunway Sitges Open just missed out on becoming the youngest grandmaster of all time.

Young-Kyu Yoo watches over his son on tournaments | Photo: David Llada / American Chess Magazine

Right now Yoo is extremely active with more than 100 games in the Mega Database over the last two years. He basically plays a tournament every month. In 2019, he plans to play tournaments in Europe. Those who want to follow his progress more closely should take a look at his Facebook page, which his father has created for him. It's clear that Yoo has a lot of fun doing what he does.

Speaking of fun, here was one photographer David Llada's favourite photos:

The final round

Before the last round, the Peruvian GM Emilio Cordova led the standings. He was paired against Stukopin and took risks to try to win. That ultimately backfired and brought Stukopin on top.

The Sicilian with 3.Bb5

The Rossolimo Variation of the Sicilian Defence (1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5) is always an excellent choice with White if you want to avoid the deeply analysed main lines of the Open Sicilian. Alexei Shirov provides you with the requisite understanding of the opening's subtleties, by annotating extensively his most important games in this variation. During his career, he has played the 3.Bb5 system with both colours and he shares with you on this DVD his valuable experience.

Andrey Stukopin

With his fourth win in a row, Vietnamese Le Quang Liem was still able to reach the top spot in the table on the final day of the tournament, together with Stukopin. His game against the Armenian Gabuzyan was unusual at an early stage: 

Final standings (top 25)

Select annotated games

All games