World Youth Results After Round 8 for USA

The past few rounds have been heartbreaking for me and the USA team. I am seeing incredible starts simply fall apart with a string of losses. Hopefully they could pull it together in the last few rounds.

Under 8 Open

This section's USA heartbreak is probably Tan Nguyen, who is falling back after a great start. Christopher Shen is clearly in superhuman form. One of my picks for a great result, Joaquin Perkins, has come out of nowhere to be near the top of the list.

Christopher Shen-6.5

Balaji Daggupati-5.5

Ben Rood-5.5

Tan Nguyen-5

Joaquin Perkins-5

Aydin Turgot-4.5

Kevin Chor-4.5

Anthony He-4.5

Atreya Vaidya-4.5

Logan Wu-4.5

Kelvin Jiang-4.5

Daniel Levkov-4.5

Eric Wang-4

Milind Maiti-4

Harry Wang-4

Ethan Tang-4

Anish Vivekananthan-4

Cole Frutos-3

Under 8 Girls

Aasa was doing incredibly until a round 8 loss, but will still get a medal I'm sure!

Aasa Dommalapati-6

Jessica Rattray-5.5

Zhiyi Wang-4.5

Sadie Edelman-4

Sara Lin-4

Carol Chen-3.5

Iris Zhou-3

 Under 10 Open 

This is the most heartbreaking section, with Praveen Balakrishnan getting 1/4 in the last 4 rounds after a 4/4 start. Previous year's Under 8 Open Champion Awonder Liang bounced back from a mediocre start with a round 8 win. Trung Nguyen lost 2 in a row. With challengers dropping like flies, you have to give credit to Aravind Kumar, who is Steady Eddie in this so far. He will surely put on a finishing spurt and get in the top 10. Awonder has been here before and will also do great in the end. I can only hope Praveen will do the same, but such a traumatic last few rounds must scar him. I am so thankful that the penultimate and final rounds are on Saturday and Sunday, so I can watch the drama unfold fully since there is no school. Go USA!

 Aravind Kumar-6

Awonder Liang-5.5

Praveen Balakrishnan-5

Trung Nguyen-5

Rayan Taghizadeh-5

Marcus Miyasaka-4.5

Andrew Titus-4.5

Under 10 Open

Jennifer Yu won the last 5 in a row. She will get a medal I believe. If it is gold, well, we shall see.

Jennifer Yu-6.5

Annie Wang-6

Joanna Liu-6

Emily Nguyen-5

Ramitha Ravishankar-4.5

Meghana Bhanuprasad-4.5

Akshita Gorti-4

Alara Balasaygun-4

Camille Kao-4

Naomi Bashkansky-3.5

Carissa Yip-3.5

Under 12 Open

Boy, I have a lot to talk about here. First the heartbreaks. Nicolas Checa was perfect 4/4 until he went loss,draw,loss. However, he is still doing quite well. The star right now, of course, is Cameron Wheeler. Since a second round loss, he has won 6 straight and is tied for the lead. If he holds on for the next couple of rounds for the gold, it will be the biggest World Youth success in history. (If you are reading this Cameron, sorry if I just pressured you!) Since this is also probably the strongest section in World Youth history,(I mean, you have USA players like Sam Sevian, Jeffery Xiong, Bryce Tiglon, Vignesh Panchantham, Jonathan Chiang, Roland Feng, John Ludwig, Joshua Sheng, Craig Hilby, Nicolas Checa, Tommy O He, etc etc etc etc. And if all the invited players actually went, it would be an astronomically strong section.) I can't wait to see how this section will turn out. Post who you're betting on! I'm not making any predictions, because really anything can happen. Samuel Sevian was in fact leading until he lost in round 8, allowing Cameron and Sam's opponent to take the lead.

Cameron Wheeler-7

Samuel Sevian-6.5

Jeffery Xiong-6.5

Bryce Tiglon-6

Vignesh Panchantham-6

Roland Feng-6

John Ludwig-6

Jonathan Chiang-5.5

Ethan Li-5.5

Nicolas Checa-5.5

Craig Hilby-5

Siddharth Banik-5

Joshua Sheng-4.5

Tommy O He-4.5

Alexander Crump-4.5

Amir Moazami-4

Kadhir Pillai-3.5

Under 12 Girls

The heartbreak here is Maggie Feng, who started with 3.5/4 but only got 0.5 out of the last 3 rounds. Ashritha is USA's best hope in the section to win a medal.

Ashritha Eswaran-6

Maggie Feng-4.5

Clarissa Abella-4

Anupama Rajendra-4

Katherine Davis-4

Priya Trakru-4

Under 14 Open

Everyone in this section is doing great, most notably Kayden Troff, with real medal chances heading into the last few rounds. He needs 2.5 out of 3 in the last 3 rounds to have any chance. Justus and Kapil need to go 3 for 3 to have any shot at a medal. So they better play for wins!

Kayden Troff-6

Justus Williams-5.5

Kapil Chandran-5.5

Christopher Gu-5

Christopher Wu-5

Safal Bora-5

Under 14 Girls

This section's heartbreak is Kimberly Ding. After a 4/4 start she went 0/3 in rounds 5-7, but managed to break that streak with a draw in round 8. That is a good sign that she could hopefully pull herself together and finish strong. Agata was doing great until a round 8 loss, and now must go at least 2.5/3 to finish with a shot at a medal.

Agata Bykovtsev-5.5

Kimberly Ding-4.5

Rachel Gologorsky-4.5

Apurva Virkud-4.5

Annie Zhao-4

Stephanie Shao-3

Under 16 Open

No medal chances

Michael Brown-5

Sean Vibbert-5

Under 16 Girls

Sarah Chiang must finish perfectly to have medal chances.

Sarah Chiang-5.5

Jessica Regam-4.5

Lilia Poteat-4

Becca Lampman-3.5

Under 18 Open

Maybe William Fisher can get an with a great finish.

William Fisher-5.5

Robert Perez-4

Under 18 Girls

Anna Matlin-4

Don't know who wrote this, but this is a good summary of all the USA players. Quite a few of the players listed as heartbreaking, really got into trouble due to time pressures and lost or drew games in general. US players are used to the standard Continental Chess type slow format - 40/120-SD/1, while the FIDE time control 40/90-30min;30secInc. The FIDE time control is actually faster for our players and this really hurt them. This is downside for players going from USA if they are used to playing in the Open tournaments and not used to the fast time controls. So, the guideline is to let them play a mix of time controls in US and play more Scholastics to not get into time pressure.