Cadet Kicks Off Today in Tennessee

(The town of Crossville, TN is home of the US Chess Federation national office and the venue for the US Cadet.)

The US Junior is not the only national scholastic invitational going on this week. Eight of the nation's top talents under age 16 flew to Crossville, Tennessee for the US Cadet. While the big guns (notably GM Ray Robson and FM Darwin Yang) elected to play in St. Louis, the field remains quite impressive. Undoubtedly this is the first time that all eight players are masters!

Another noteworthy observation about the Cadet is how tight the ratings are: just 100 points USCF from top to bottom! Seemingly anyone could beat anyone else in this tournament; it wouldn't surprise me to see each player nicked for at least one loss during the seven rounds. That should make it interesting! If I had to pick one favorite, I would go with the top seed Aleksandr Ostrovskiy because he lives in New York and consequently has more experience facing masters than anyone else.

Of course, I will cheer loudly for my pupil Yian Liou (photo at right) to bring home a national title. Yian has steadily improved from 1200 back in 2005 to nearly 2300 today. He earned a 2400 performance last weekend at Pacific Southwest Open in Los Angeles, drawing with GM Melik Khachiyan and beating IM Jack Peters. Go for the gold Yian!

2010 US Cadet Invitational (most updated USCF rating, July FIDE rating)

1. Aleksandr Ostrovskiy (2299, 2257)
2. Yian Liou (2277, 2211)
3. David Adelberg (2275, 2216)
   
4. Michael Yang (2247, 2141)
   
5. Adarsh Jayakumar (2242, 2172)
   
6. Ryan Moon (2227, 2227)
7. Jarod Pamatmat (2210, 2060)
   
8. Atulya Shetty (2198, 2086)

Games will be broadcast live on the MonRoi website (free registration). I don't know when the first round begins, except that it is sometime today. Stay tuned for updates. Correction: Round 1 is on Tuesday, July 13.