Top US Juniors defeat UTD team

Chess players from around the world seeking to pursue degrees in the American university system have a special home at the University of Texas - Dallas to show their special talents over the board also translate to success in other intellectual fields. Though not the only university with a penchant for chess, and chess players, it is certainly one of the most prominent.

The poster and official brochure

As befits it, an assortment of competitions are organized to promote the game, the department's visibility, and of course provide training for the players. During the Spring Break, it organized a particularly appealing idea by pitting its grandmaster team against a group of guests all of whom represent the very best of the US Juniors of the moment. On paper, the ratings averages of the teams seemed fair and favored even the more mature UTD team, but as one grandmaster put it, "I'm sure the UTD players are overjoyed at the idea of playing a bunch of underrated prodigies on the rise." The heavy-handed irony made it clear what he though would happen. Would his words prove to be prophecy?

The competition was as serious as could be, and designed as a double-round Scheviningen match, meaning each team member would play the other team twice, With five players on each team, that meant a total of ten games for each.

Team UTD

Team US Juniors

After the first leg of five rounds, things looked about as balanced as could be, and though the US Juniors team came out ahead 13.0-12.0, it was by the slimmest of margins possible. The star of the juniors was Samuel Sevian with 3.5/5, but Akshat Chandra and Kayden Troff also posted plus scores with 3.0/5 each. In the UTD team, top-seed Leonid Kritz (2583) and Conrad Holt also fought hard with the only plus scores of their team with 3.0/5 each.

Playing the symbolic first move to start the competition on the board of GM Denis Kadric, a
first-year student in mathematics, against IM Akshat Chandra

The same privilege on the board of top-seed Leonid Kritz, studying business administration,
facing Kayden Troff. No, Kritz did not play 1.f4

The second leg of the competition did not show any remarkable improvement from UTD, as the Juniors were even more successful thanks very much to a rallying result from IM Darwin Young, who had started slow with only 1.5/5, but was the top scoring player on his team with 3.5/5 in the latter half. His result was matched by Giorgi Margvelashvili, who was the only plus score on UTD now, while Sevian and Troff both pulled their weight and then some leading to a 13.5-11.5 win in the second leg, and 26.5-23.5 overall win. Of special note on the UTD team was Conrad Holt who scored 5.0/10 but without one single draw! In other words his 50% score was comprised of five wins and five losses. No half measures for that young man.

GM Giorgi Margvelashvili, who is a graduate student in business administration, was the
highest scoring player on the UTD team. The preponderance of green jackets is because
they are the university colors.

The top scoring player of all the players was 14-year-old GM Samuel Sevian, whose play
showed great versatility and skill

Sevian - Iotov

After dominating his opponent for the entire game, they finally reached
this endgame of opposite colored bishops. Sevian found the way to victory
here, can you? White to play and win.

He entered the competition with 2531, but as a result of his performance gained 17 Elo and is now at 2548 on the virtual lists. The reason for this particular note is that he can still theoretically beat Wei Yi's record for the all-time youngest 2600 FIDE player, but would need to achieve this within two months. In all fairness, although he certainly seems to be playing well enough, it seems unlikely he will play enough games in that period to achieve it. That said, while these records and numbers are always fun to follow, far more interesting is the actual play of the player. Watch this gem of a game played in the last round against the top-seed Leonid Kritz.

Samuel Sevian vs Leonid Kritz

Final standings

Solution to position:

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN The games are being broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 13 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.