US Chess Junior Open: Karthik Ramachandran Wins Top Honor!

Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2012

Hi everyone,

Karthik Ramachandran

The U.S. Junior Chess Open was held recently with 305 players attending from 17 states of the country. The top and premier division, the Under 21, was dominated by Expert Karthik Ramachandran. Although there were six masters in the field, Karthik, who entered the event with a 2157 rating, finished with a perfect 6-0 score including a 5th Round victory over top-seed Adarsh Jayakumar (2372) and a 6th Round win against NM Jonathan Chiang (2235). 

All alone in second place was Jonathan's elder sister, 15-year old Sarah Chiang who drew her game against Adarsh and won the others. Sarah who is the highest U16 female in the country improved her rating to a very lofty 2275! Hopefully she will be selected for the Junior Closed next year. 

Sarah Chiang

National Master Adithya Balasubramanian (2345) from UMBC finished alone in third place with five points. In the Under 15 division two players, Arizona's Richard Qi and Colorado's Jackson Chen, finished as co-champions with 5.5 points. The Under 11 division also had co-champions as Texas' Ram Krisna and West Virginia's Advait Patel drew their last round game to finish with 5.5 points. In the Under 8 division it was all Maggie Ni. She first entered this event two years ago as a four year old. Find detailed results at the US Chess Fed official website.

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