US Junior Chess Championship 2013 Round 6: Harmon-Vellotti Leads Again

12th Women's World Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk's Chess Blog for Latest Chess News and Trivia (c) 2013

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SAINT LOUIS (June 21, 2013) -- As if Luke Harmon-Vellotti didn’t get enough cake from his sixth-round match versus WFM Sarah Chiang, he got to eat it, too, when Grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura helped analyze the game afterward.

During his off day from the Tal Memorial in Russia, America’s No. 1 “called in” to the live stream of the 2013 U.S. Junior Closed Championship – or, more accurately, chatted with commentator GM Ben Finegold – to help evaluate several of Harmon-Vellotti’s lines from his sixth-round match versus Chiang.

And through several variations, he kept coming up with the same suggestion for the 14-year-old pride of Idaho: Resign. Resign. Resign.

But Harmon-Vellotti found light at the end of the darkest of tunnels on Thursday, where a small slip-up by Chiang – perhaps her first of an otherwise fantastic game – allowed him in for a desperate 11th-hour checkmate. The full-point puts Harmon-Vellotti back in clear first with 4.5/6, after a draw for IM Daniel Naroditsky and a loss for Robert Perez, both who shared the lead entering round 6. The day also featured important wins for both IM Kayden Troff, who moves into a second-place tie with Naroditsky at 4/6, and FM Samuel Sevian, whose 2.5 points over the last three rounds have him tied for third at 3.5/6.

Despite the three-way share of the lead on Thursday morning, Harmon-Vellotti looked to have the most comfortable schedule to close the round-robin tournament, with matches still to play against three opponents in the tournament’s lower half of the rankings. But Chiang, struggling in tenth place with just a half point, had clear intentions of spoiling his visit to Saint Louis. As black, she offered an early twist to the Classical Nimzo-Indian to stay hyper-aggressive in the opening, beckoning the white queen out for early harassment.

Though at the expense of a ruined pawn structure, including an isolated c-pawn and pawns stacked on the f-file to expose her king, Chiang’s immediate pressure made Harmon-Vellotti lag behind in time – both on his clock and on the board, where an uncomfortably late castle cost him a pawn at 15. … Bxe2. Chiang mugged another pawn with 22. … Qxb2, creating a downhill passer on the c-file and all but foreshadowing the upset.

Harmon-Vellotti’s only meager attack was to charge ahead with his g- and h-pawns, which did more to expose his already weak king than mount much of an attack. But he sacrificed one – dragging his material disadvantage down even further, now three pawns behind – in a desperate attempt to open the h-file and set up a battery.

And then Chiang slipped. Her clear path to victory was stalled only by the need of a brief safe spot for her king, which she could have found on 32. … Kg8 but instead pushed f5 with thoughts of an escape route. Harmon-Vellotti pounced quickly with a pin, exchange and discovery-filled tactical slam to earn checkmate.

“This was the only game where the opening has done any good for me – he played right into it,” said a dejected Chiang. “I very clearly knew I was better, in a winnable position, and I was just trying to take it one move at a time. But near the end, I thought my way down to six minutes; I should have slowed it down even more. If I had just moved my king back [to g8], he had nothing, and I’m queening.”

Perez shared the lead entering Thursday but faced a grueling road ahead, still with matchups against both Harmon-Vellotti and Naroditsky, as well as the round 6 skirmish with second-place Troff. As black, Perez defended with the Czech Benoni and pushed into an extremely closed board, unaided by an early knight trade with 13. Nxb5 axb5.

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