US Junior Closed: Star-studded surprises

In view of his recent success and GM norms, 13-year-old Sevian was considered a favorite to take the title. However, somehow things would not click for him as instead he suffered three losses in the first four rounds, mostly due to poor focus as he botched perfectly healthy positions for no good reason.

Fellow 13-year-old Jeffrey Xiong has long been in Sevian's shadow until the last year when something clicked and the results began rolling in. Contrary to his rival, he had a dream start and took the sole lead after four rounds, with a very fine win.

IM Jeffrey Xiong has had a great start, but can he keep the momentum?

This is Xiong's third US Junior, and experience played an important role. “Experience has been big,” Xiong said. “The first few times I played (in the Junior Closed), I haven’t been as comfortable and as confident as I feel now. Probably one or two years ago, I wouldn’t have been as confident in sacrificing a piece like I did in today’s game.”

GM Kayden Troff, who had also started with 2.5/3, could not keep pace, and with a draw, stood right behind Xiong.

Heading into the round, the standings’ top-three leaders had begun to break away, separating themselves from the rest of the field by a full point -- but on Tuesday those front-runners were suddenly reminded: Not so fast. The bottom three players in the standings combined for three points, while the top three scored just a half-point.

Tournament leader IM Jeffrey Xiong was dealt his first defeat after getting bit by IM Sam Sevian, the second seed and pre-tournament favorite who had lurked dangerously in the bottom of the standings after finding three losses through the first four rounds. Sevian looked like his old self for at least Tuesday, patiently squeezing out Xiong’s Sicilian by positionally strangling him right from the start.

After a rough start, Samuel Sevian is on the comeback trail

Also slipping was the tournament’s lone GM Kayden Troff, who fell with the white pieces in his first loss of the event to FM Michael Bodek. The two front-runner defeats gave a serious shake to the standings just past the halfway mark, moving Bodek up with Troff in second place, and allowing IM Luke Harmon-Vellotti to catch pace in front after mustering the day’s only draw to FM Justus Williams.

Larson, having earned his wildcard as a promising local to the host Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis, entered the tournament more than a 150-point underdog to the next-closest competitor -- though the 17-year-old has more-than proven he can hang just fine in this elite field.

Given the wildcard, Matthew Larson, the lowest rated player, has done very well, especially
considering he has only been playing for four years

Larson, who has only been playing chess for four years, scored the highest-rated draw of his career against Xiong in round 3 -- and on Tuesday he notched the highest-rated victory of his career over Ostrovskiy, who outweighed the newcomer by more than 300 rating points.

Standings after five rounds

Report by Albert Silver and Brian Jerauld
Pictures from official site

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 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.