Carissa Yip defeats another GM

Carissa Yip at the Herb Healy Open House
photo by Tony Cortizas Jr.

Club champion Carissa Yip finishes 2016 by defeating another GM at the 42nd Eastern Open. A promising sign for 2017!

Enkhbat shared third-place honors with young Massachusetts WFM Carissa Yip, who engineered one of the Eastern’s more memorable upsets with her Round 3 win over Virginia GM Sergey Erenburg in an exciting Sicilian Dragon. When the grandmaster missed a chance to put the game away, Yip seized her chance. She later called the result “just luck,” but there was more than a little skill involved.

White’s 14. e5!? opens up the center and leads to some tricky tactics after Yip sacrifices a pawn to open queenside attacking lines with 17. Rd4 b4!? 18. axb4 axb4 19. Rxb4 Qd8 20. Re1 Qa5. Things rapidly come to a head in the game’s critical position: 21. Rd4 (also possible was 21. Qb6 Qa1+ 22. Kd2 [Nb1?? Nd7 23. Qd4 Nxe5 24. Rxe5 Rfd8 25. Qf4 e6, and any rook move allows 26…Bxb2 mate] Rfd8+ 23. Ke2 Qa8, with chances for both sides) Rfd8 (Qa1+ 22. Nb1 e6 was the safer course) 22. g4 (see diagram) Rxd4 23. Bxd4 Rd8?, allowing White what should have been a nasty shot.

Both players saw 24. Bxf7+! Kxf7? (Kh8 25. Be5 Be4 26. f4 Bc6 27. Ba2 keeps White on top) 25. Qxe7+ Kg8 26. Qe6+ Kh8 27. Bxf6, but wrongly thought 27…Bh6+ turned the tables. Instead, after 28. g5! Re8 29. gxh6 Rxe7 30. Rxe7, White retains a distinct advantage.

  You can read the full report in the Washington Times.

Then she returned home to Boston.

Carissa enjoyed the first day of the new year at the annual Herb Healy Open House at the Boylston Chess Club, where she is our first female champion.

We hope it will be another good year for Carissa.