Team USA After 7 Rounds

A melting pot of civilization outside the Dras Center in Maribor, Slovenia.

After a day of rest and sightseeing on Tuesday, the American youngsters at the 2012 World Youth returned to the task at hand: winning chess games against highly ranked opponents from around the globe.  Round 7 proved very difficult and for the first time, Team USA scored under 50% as a whole.  On the bright side, the average score of 89 players remains a solid 4.2 out of 7, or almost 60%.  The number with 5.0 or more (23) exceeds those under 50% (14).  With four rounds left, 15 contenders rank in the top 12 for their age and gender, including 4 from Northern California.  Go U-S-A!!

Alas, all is quiet indoor.  Shhh, chess games in progress!

All eyes remain fixed on the U12 section, where four Americans will play on the top 3 boards on Thursday at 6:00am PST.  Highest rated SM Sam Sevian (NCal) assumed the lead at 6.5 with a crushing Sozin Sicilian win against his teammate and second seed, FM Jeffery Xiong (Texas), who now has 5.5.  Also in the mix at 6.0 are underrated Bryce Tiglon (Washington) and NM Cameron Wheeler (NCal).  Four more Americans have 5.0 and could still end up in the top 10 with a strong finish.

The U12 section is not the only one with Americans prowling among the leaders.    Four girls in G10 stand in the top 11, led by Jennifer Yu (Virginia) with 5.5.  Aasa Dommalapati (also from Virginia) is second in G8 with an undefeated 6.0.  For the boys, Aravind Kumar (New Jersey) and Christopher Shen (Ohio) have 5.5 each in U10 and U8, respectively.  Best among the teenagers, Kayden Troff (Utah) and Agata Bykovtsev (SCal) have 5.5 each in U14 and G14, respectively. 

Team USA Leaders After Round 7
Full Results

• U8 - 5.5 Christopher Shen; 5.0 Tan Nguyen and Balaji Daggupati
• G8 - 5.5 Aasa Dommalapati
• U10 - 5.5 Aravind Kumar; 5.0 Trung Nguyen and Praveen Balakrishnan
• G10 - 5.5 Jennifer Yu; 5.0 Joanna Liu, Emily Nguyen and Annie Wang
• U12 - 6.5 Samuel Sevian; 6.0 Bryce Tiglon and Cameron Wheeler; 5.5 Jeffery Xiong; 5.0 Vignesh Panchanatham, John Ludwig, Roland Feng and Jonathan Chiang
• G12 - 5.0 Ashritha Eswaran
• U14 - 5.5 Kayden Troff; 5.0 Christopher Gu
• G14 - 5.5 Agata Bykovtsev
• U16 - 4.0 Sean Vibbert and Michael Brown
• G16 - 4.5 Sarah Chiang
• U18 - 4.5 William Fisher
• G18 - 3.5 Anna Matlin