Yip wins, Sevian draws in Round 1 of U.S. Championships in St. Louis

Yip wins, Sevian draws in Round 1

of U.S. Championships in St. Louis

The two Massachusetts players competing in this year's U.S. Championships got off to a good start on Wednesday, March 20th, in Round 1 of the round-robin event being played at the Saint Louis Chess Club. Fifteen-year-old WIM Carissa Yip of Andover, 2014 Wachusett CC champion and 2016 Boylston CC champion, defeated WGM Sabina Foisor in the Women's Championship, while 18-year-old GM Sam Sevian of Holden held the top seed and the world's No. 2 player, Fabiano Caruana, to a draw in the main event. All the games in the women's division were decisive, with the following results in addition to Carissa's win with White over Foisor: GM Irina Krush 1-0 Emily Nuguyen, Anna Zatonskih 1-0 Akshita Gorti, WGM Tatev Abrahamyan 0-1 FM Maggie Feng, WIM Ashrita Eswaran 0-1 WIM Annie Wang, WGM Anna Sharevich 0-1 WIM Jennifer Yu.

In the all-GM main event, the only decisive game was Jeffrey Xiong's win (with Black) over Timur Gareev. In addition to Sevian's draw with Caruana, results of the others games were as follows: Hikaru Nakamura 1/2-1/2 Wesley So, Sam Shankland (defending U.S. champion) 1/2-1/2 Ray Robson, Awonder Liang 1/2-1/2 Aleksandr Lenderman, Varuzhan Akobian 1/2-1/2 Leinier Dominguez.

George M

[ Editor's note:  there is a very nice interview with George in the Telegram.]