US Junior Girls: The Tournament

About a month ago, I participated in the US Junior Girls Championship. My dad and I arrived a few days earlier, as did my good friend Jennifer Yu. Jennifer won the world youth championship last year.

We met Jennifer, her mom, and Frank Berry, the organizer, at the airport. Frank was there to pick us up at the airport as we didn’t have a car, and didn’t want to rent one because we wouldn’t need one.

After we dropped off our suitcases at the motel, we went to a nice breakfast place a few blocks away. Nothing much happened in the upcoming days to the tournament. I saw a few other tournament players, such as Maggie Feng, and Ashritha Eswaran, who by the way, won the tournament. 

The night before the tournament, when my dad and I were going for dinner, we saw the older girls arrive, like Sarah Chiang, Agata Bykovtsev, Apurva Virkud, and Jessica Regam. They were all over 15. The two other girls who hadn’t arrived yet were Simone Liao and Annie Wang, who were both arriving the morning of the tournament. Simone was also 16.

That night, we also realized that the motel had no WiFi, so we had use McDonald's WiFi that was free.

The next morning, it was the opening ceremony, and more important, the drawing of lots. We all met in the tournament hall, which turned out to be a little room. Over at the right side of the room next to a board there was a poster of Mikhail Tal, the “magician from Riga.” Frank joked that if you sat there, it would look like Tal was kibitzing your game.

He also told us we had to use MonRoi PCMs to record our games, which led to some dispute, since only a few of us had ever used MonRoi. Frank allowed us to also keep track with our scoresheets, but we had to use MonRoi in order to broadcast the games live. We took a group picture with a banner over us that said “Welcome Chess Champions.” But then we needed to adjust the banner because the older girls were too tall and their heads were blocking the words. And before everyone finished snapping pictures, the banner fell.

My first-round opponent turned out to be Sarah Chiang. She was going to Washington University right after the tournament ended. And I mean RIGHT after. She even missed the closing ceremony.  

In the game, she played very well even after she was down a piece for two pawns. But a piece is a piece, so I converted it and won.

The second round was against Simone Liao. I was the one putting pressure on her, but then I hung a pawn and the tables turned. If you saw the game, and wondered why I sacked a piece in the opening, it’s because it’s all book!

After I lost to Simone, I was rather upset, and was squeezed by Maggie Feng in round three. After two days, I didn’t even have an average score.

I was hoping for a win in round four against Apurva. I blundered an exchange in the opening, but it didn’t turn out so bad. I had a vicious attack against her king, and an extra passed d-pawn. She missed a few chances and with my tactics and calculation, and I managed to win back the exchange, therefore up a pawn. But she had a pawn storm against my king, and with my pieces being restricted, I got in time trouble and blundered a piece. Apurva finished the game in a very nice fashion.

My round-five game was against Annie. I knew her from the World Youth back in 2013, and we became friends. I wasn’t sure what she played as White so I couldn’t prepare. Instead, my dad bought me to QuikTrip (kind of like 7/11 but food tastes better and it’s cheaper) where I got a Big Q and a hotdog.

 

After lunch we went back to the motel room and I took a nap. When round five started, I sat at the board where Tal was “kibitzing.”

The game against Annie was an exciting one, with a twist at the end. I wasn’t doing well in the opening so I sacked an exchange for an exciting attack against Annie’s king. I won back the exchange after some tactics and managed to also snag two extra pawns. But at this point, we were getting below the 15 minutes point. Well, at least I was. Annie was basically playing for the increment. She was hovering at around 1-2 minutes.

As I thought of a way to push my passed pawn, my time got low. I just kept pushing my pawn, not really paying attention to Annie’s attack on my king, which didn’t seem dangerous.

How wrong I was.

I queened my pawn, but Annie just sacked her rook for it. Then I missed a nice in-between move by her and I thought I was dead. However, I found a way to keep playing by losing my knight. I was up an exchange, but my kingside was blasted wide open. And at the last moment, both of us playing on increment, with everyone crowded around us, back from dinner, Annie glanced at her clock, her hand hovering over the board. 0:01. Her hand touched the bishop on e4, about to move it to f3.

BEEP! It was too late. She flagged. The tension was immediately broken, and everyone started babbling.

“I thought you were dead!”

“Nd4 was a nice move, I missed that”

“Wow.”

“We were analyzing your game the whole time”

That game reminded GM Serper of a crazy game by Tal, and he created some puzzles from that game. 

Here is my game against Annie Wang that I annotated myself.

 

I was playing Ashritha in round six. She had bought her coach along, so I was sure she had prepared for me. I played an old line that I rarely play anymore. I tried to break in the center, but it didn’t work out as planned. I started getting squeezed, but I set up my pieces in perfect position for my f5 break and to stop White from penetrating on the d-file.

At the right moment, I broke with f5 and won a pawn after complications. But I got low on time and transposed into a knight ending. My knight was out of play, while my king was stuck and Ashritha’s king was much more active. I lost the game.

In round seven I played Jennifer.

I was worse in the opening even though I was White because it was opposite-side castling and her pawn storm was faster. But she missed a nice tactic where she lost an important pawn, the base of her pawn chain on the queenside. There was no chance left for her, so she could only lose more material. We exchanged queens, and she sacked an exchange. After some inaccuracies, she had some chances as she had the two bishops. We both got low on time, but she missed another tactic where I won two pieces for a rook, making it simpler for me to win since I was up a piece instead of an exchange.

In round eight I played Agata, and I tried out the Modern against her. It worked fairly well, but I made inaccuracies and my center was ripped apart. Agata managed to win a pawn. Her pieces were much more active than mine, and she won.

In the final round, I played Jessica. I sacked a pawn in the French to open up Jessica’s kingside. After a tactical oversight I won a piece and converted it to a full point.

I finished earlier than usual, so we ate dinner at The Sushi Train. The Sushi Train is a restaurant that serves sushi on a train. There’s a little rail with a train on it going round and roun,d and there’s sushi on it that you can grab off it.

We went back to the motel for the closing ceremony. The one dramatic game hadn’t finished yet. Ashritha, with 5.5 points had to win or draw to clinch the title. Maggie, who had five points, had to win to clinch the title. Maggie had two rooks for three pieces but in the end she made a mistake and Ashritha won. Nerves, I suppose.

After the closing ceremony (where we received our money), we had a post-tournament party. We went to the Mexican restaurant across the street with all the players except for Simone, who was leaving early in the morning the next day, and Sarah, who was already off to Washington U, which is actually in St. Louis.

Even though my dad and I already had dinner, we went along so I could hang out with my friends. We played Dark Echo on Jennifer’s phone, which had terrifying sound effects, and Annie played Doodle Jump on my phone. We also talked about other apps, like Flappy Bird and how it got taken off the app store. Everyone exchanged contact info.

When we walked back in the motel it was 10:30. The older girls went to get ice cream at QuikTrip, and they brought it back to Jessica’s room to eat, since Jessica and Sarah had been living together for the whole tournament.  The younger girls (me, Jennifer, Annie, and Ashritha) decided to play bughouse.

Jennifer put on Taylor Swift, Demi Lovato, and Bridget Mendler songs for us to listen to while we talked about how weird it was when people who thought they could trash talk trash talked.  Then the older girls came downstairs, full from a tub of ice cream they finished by themselves.

I exchanged contact info with Agata too. Ashritha had to leave, so we wished her luck in the Pan-Ams  (which she indeed won) , and said goodbye. Since Ashritha left and took her board with her, we went on the computer and played FireBoy and WaterGirl until it was 11:30 and all our parents picked us up. We promised to text and we all left.

By the way, Jennifer was going to the US Chess School in New York too so I met her there again. Maybe I’ll write an article on it :)