US Championships: Yoo expelled after violating the code of conduct

by Johannes Fischer
10/17/2024 – The fifth round of the US Championships was overshadowed by a serious incident. After Christopher Yoo was defeated by Fabiano Caruana, he lost his nerve: he crumpled up his scoresheet and then stormed out of the tournament hall. In the process, he punched a videographer in the back. The organisers notified the police and Yoo was expelled from the tournament. His previous results were cancelled, including his defeat against Caruana. Nevertheless, Caruana is in the lead with 3 out of 4 points, ahead of Awonder Liang and Hans Niemann with 3 out of 5. In the women's tournament, Carissa Yip continued her winning streak and claimed her fifth victory in a row. | Photo: Screenshot from the Siant Louis Chess Club webcast
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Banned from the Saint Louis Chess Club

This video shows the final phase of the game between Christopher Yoo and Fabiano Caruana.

The video does not show Yoo storming out of the tournament hall and the subsequent incident with the videographer. However, the tournament organisers released a statement shortly afterwards in which they described the incidents. They expelled Yoo from the tournament and banned him from the Saint Louis Chess Club.

US Chess Championship 2024

Christopher Yoo - one of the greatest American talents

Born in 2006, 17-year-old Christopher Yoo was long regarded as one of the biggest talents in the United States. He won the IM title in 2019 and became the youngest American IM of all time, a record that was broken later that year by Abhimanyu Mishra.

Yoo became a grandmaster in 2021 and with a current Elo rating of 2590, he is currently ranked 19th among active players in the USA.

The game

The events after the game make it easy to forget how strongly Caruana played the game. He played with black and soon after the opening made a positional exchange sacrifice, forcing White to make one difficult decision after another. In the end, Caruana won the game with an outstanding mating attack.

After two draws at the start, this was Caruana's third win in a row, and it remains to be seen whether the drama surrounding Yoo upsets him and affects his game in the next rounds.

The expulsion of Yoo from the tournament has thrown the results and table into disarray, as one player is simply missing.

Round 4 results

US Chess Championship 2024

Standings after round 5

US Chess Championship 2024

All games

Yip still perfect

Things were less dramatic in the women's tournament. Carissa Yip continues to set the pace in that even: she claimed her fifth win in a row and is already 1½ points ahead of Tatev Abrahamyan, who is in sole second place with 3½ out of 5 points.

Round 5 in the women's event saw all six games ending decisively.

Carissa Yip

Carissa Yip | Photo: Lennart Ootes

Tatev Abrahamyan

Tatev Abrahamyan beat Anna Zatonskih with black | Photo: Lennart Ootes

Round 5 results

Standings after round 5

All games

Links

Johannes Fischer was born in 1963 in Hamburg and studied English and German literature in Frankfurt. He now lives as a writer and translator in Nürnberg. He is a FIDE-Master and regularly writes for KARL, a German chess magazine focusing on the links between culture and chess. On his own blog he regularly publishes notes on "Film, Literature and Chess".