Teenage Kicks

John B. Henderson • July 28, 2023

In 1955, aged 18, Boris Spassky became the first teenage grandmaster and, conversely with it, the youngest in the world. Three years later, Bobby Fischer smashed the record at 15 years, 6 months and 1 day. But records are made to be broken - and the latest to follow in those famous footsteps is Abhimanyu "Abhi" Mishra, with the New Jersey teenager holding the historic record he broke two years ago at the age of 12 years, 4 months and 25 days.


And as part of a trifecta of National Junior and Senior Championships hosted by the ever-inventive and always-supporting Saint Louis Chess Club, Abhi has taken yet another monumental step in his burgeoning chess career by clinching his first US Junior Championship title.

Now aged 14 - and showing a level of maturity that continues to belie his age - Abhi has bested a strong field of prodigious prodigies, in what became a very competitive contest, to take the top prize of $12,000 and earning a golden ticket in this year’s U.S. Championship. Not only that, but there was a also bonus taken en passant of a $10,000 scholarship to the university of his choice thanks to the generosity of Dewain Barber and US Chess. 


After winning his first US Junior crown, a delighted Abhi is now looking forward to future challenges, commenting: “The U.S. Junior Championship is a strong tournament and my main purpose was winning so I would be able to play against America’s best in the U.S. Championship later this year.”


Another teenager who got her kicks in Saint Louis is IM-elect Alice Lee, 13, who already has a record haul of American age records to her name - and now she’s captured the US Girls’ Junior Championship crown, with her commanding performance earning her a $6,000 cash prize, $10,000 scholarship to the university of her choice and a seat to compete in the U.S. Women’s Championship this fall.


In today’s diagram moment Alice (playing Zoey Tang in Round 4), ruthlessly found the stone-cold killer move of 36.h3! - the tactical point being that 36…Rxh3 37.Rxe8+! Kxe8 38.Rb8+ Kf7 39.Rb7+ Kf6 40.Rxg7 Rxe3 41.Kf2! Ra3 42.Rc7 Rxa2+ 43.Kg3 Ra3+ 44.Kh4 Ra6 45.Bh5 e5 46.Rf7+ and Black resigned with 46…Ke6 47.f5 mate coming.


US Junior Championship

1. GM A. Mishra 6/9; 2-5. GM B. Jacobson, GM A. Hong, GM B. Daggupati, IM A. Guo 5.5; 6-7. IM J. Wang, IM K. Ghazarian 5; 8-9. IM J. Liang, IM J. Stearman 3; 10. FM A. Xu 1.


US Girls’ Junior Championship:

1. FM A. Lee 7.5/9; 2. FM R. Yan 6; 3-4. IM C. Yip, FM Z. Tang 5.5; 5. WIM I Mou 4.5; 6. FM R. Wu 4; 7. WCM S. Mangalam 3.5; 8-9. NM K. Liu, WFM G. Prasanna 3; 10. NM R. Atwell 2.5.



GM Andrew Hong - GM Abhimanyu Mishra

US Junior Championship, (4)


C18: French, Winawer, Advance 

1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e5 c5 5.a3 Bxc3+ 6.bxc3 Ne7 7.Qg4 Qc7 8.Bd3 Back in the day, due to the influence of leading Francophile devotees such as Mikhail Botvinnik and Wolfgang Uhlmann, the big critical theory line was 8.Qxg7 Rg8 9.Qxh7 cxd4 10.Ne2 dxc3 with a complex game ahead for both players. But such forcing lines are generally avoided in today's digital age and the influence of the engine. 8...c4 9.Be2 Qa5 10.Bd2 Nf5 11.a4 Nc6 12.Nf3 Bd7 13.Qf4 Rf8 14.h4 O-O-O 15.h5 f6 16.Qh2 h6 17.Ra3 Rh8 18.O-O fxe5 19.Nxe5 Nfxd4! Abhi is always tactically aware at the board, and this exchange sacrifice offers Black genuine long-term winning chances.

20.cxd4 Qxd2 21.Nf7 Rhf8 22.Nxd8 Rxd8 23.Re3 Nxd4 It's generally never a good sign for White in the Winawer when he sees his centre imploding in such a fashion. 24.Qe5 The engine prefers 24.Bg4!? Qxc2 25.Qf4 Nf5 26.Re5 but after 26...Rf8 27.a5! Rf6 28.Bxf5 Rxf5 29.Rxf5 Qxf5 30.Qd4 a6 31.Qxg7 Qxh5 32.Qf8+ Qe8 33.Qxh6 but analysing such positions deep in your head, the human gut reaction would be to fear the coming endgame with Black's mass of queenside pawns. 24...Nf5 25.Rd1 Qa5 26.Rf3 Qc7 27.Qa1 Bc6 28.a5 a6 29.g3 Nd6 30.Re3 Ne4 31.Qd4 Rf8 32.Rf3 Nf6 33.Re3 Ne4 34.Rf3? Right square, wrong piece! White would have offered up better resistance with 34.Bf3! Qf7 35.Rf1 Qf6 36.Qb6 but after 36...Qf5 despite the engine saying the position is a digital decimal draw with "0.00", long-term, Black has the easier game to play with winning chances, especially his white-square grip and if those central pawns start pushing up the board. 34...Re8! Rightly avoiding the trade of rooks that would only have served to ease White's game. Now Black has easy pickings of the loose pawns on both wings of the board on a5 and h5. And that's not all White has to worry about, as there's the little matter of Black's central pawns becoming mobile.

35.Qa7 Nf6 Both rook pawns are now sitting ducks. 36.Re3 Better would have been 36.Qa8+ Kd7 37.Qa7 Qxa5 38.Bxc4 Kc7! 39.Be2 Qb6! 40.Qxb6+ Kxb6 41.Rb3+ Kc5 though long-term, the endgame is winning for Black with ...e5 coming. 36...Qxa5 37.Bxc4? I can only presume that White lost the plot completely in the mad dash to reach the time control, thinking this was a clever trick to save the game, only to realise it was to be a losing blunder. 37...dxc4 38.Rxe6 Crossing your fingers and praying your opponent falls for 38...Rxe6?? 39.Qa8+ Kc7 40.Qd8 mate. But unfortunately for White, there's a little snafu. 38...Kc7! 39.Qd4 No better was 39.Rxe8 Nxe8 40.Qd4 Kb8! 41.g4 Qg5! and Black is easily winning with g4 under strain and ...Qh4 a major threat. And note that 42.f3 doesn't work, as 42...Bxf3 43.Qd8+ Ka7! 44.Qxg5 hxg5 45.Re1 Nd6 46.Re7 Bxg4 47.Rxg7 Bxh5 48.Rxg5 Bf3 and Black wins by carefully pushing up the queenside pawns. 39...Kb8! Once again, nicely sidestepping the cheapo of the Qd8 mate. 40.Rxc6

With all the endgame scenarios favouring Black, this is the best hope for a miraculous 'Hail Mary' save. 40...bxc6 41.c3 Qb5 Removing the only threat White has with Rb1+ - now it is just a matter of time for Abhi to convert his material advantage. 42.Ra1 Kb7 43.Qd1 Qc5 44.Qb1+ Kc7 45.Rxa6 Re2! With f2 now under attack, White can't exploit Black's loose king to save the game. 46.Qf1 Qe5 47.Ra1 Qe4 The clinical kill was 47...Ng4! not only hitting f2 but also a major mating threat with ...Qxh5! and ...Qh2+ etc. But by this stage, with so many ways for Black to win, Abhi takes a slightly longer and more scenic road to Rome. 48.Qc1 Qf3 49.Qf1 Ne4 50.Ra7+ Kd6 51.Qd1+ Nd2 52.Rf7 Qxf7 Or even better was 52...Qd3 53.Qc1 Qb1 and White can resign. 53.Qxe2 Nf3+ 54.Kg2 Ne5 55.f4 Qd5+ 56.Kf2 Nd3+ The rest is a futile exercise in commenting on, as Black eventually converts his superior material advantage into a crucial win that proved vital for Abhi to go on to win the title. 57.Kg1 Qe6 58.Qa2 Qe1+ 59.Kg2 Qxc3 60.Qa8 Qb2+ 61.Kh3 Kc5 62.Qa7+ Kb4 63.Qb6+ Ka3 64.Qxc6 Qd4 65.Qa8+ Kb3 66.Qg8 Nb4 67.Kg4 Kb2 68.Qe6 c3 69.Qe2+ c2 70.Qh2 Kb1 71.Qg2 c1=Q 72.Qh1 Qd7+ 0-1

The 42 Paradox

By John B. Henderson • October 2, 2023
Well, well, well. After rampaging his way through many of the finals and opponents throughout the 2023 Champions Chess Tour, Magnus Carlsen’s “final boss” reign came to a screeching halt in what proved to be an enthralling AI Cup Grand Final on Friday, as the favourite was beaten not once but in three games, and over two matches, by Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, who sensationally grabbed the last remaining spot in the Champions Tour Final in December. Earlier, Carlsen had defeated MVL in the final of the winners’ bracket, before the Frenchman gained the right to a rematch in the double-elimination contest by beating Ian Nepomniachtchi in the final of the losers’ bracket. In the Grand Final, buoyed up and firing on all cylinders, MVL beat Carlsen by a 2½-1½ score.

We'll Meet Again

By John B. Henderson • September 29, 2023
The self-proclaimed “final boss of chess” does what the final boss of chess does best of all: Magnus Carlsen beat Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in the final of the AI Cup winners’ bracket, the sixth and final leg of the 2023 Champions Chess Tour regular season, to reach yet another Grand Final in the novel double-elimination contest. But it wasn’t without an epic bare-knuckle street fight from both players, as MVL proved to be a worthy opponent for what looked to be an unstoppable Carlsen, who narrowly prevailed in the Armageddon to take the match 3-2. "This is the sort of thing that happens when you play Sicilians in every game," said a magnanimous Carlsen in victory after four fighting Sicilians left the match tied at 2-2.

Tiers For Fears

By John B. Henderson • September 27, 2023
Fans were treated to arguably the greatest online rivalry in chess history recently, with the Chess.com Speed Chess Championship Grand Final showdown between Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura seeing the Norwegian narrowly snatch victory by a solitary win to end the American speed maven’s hopes of a sixth successive victory. But Carlsen’s narrow win left the salivating fans feeling they’d been denied seeing this epic gladiatorial speed contest going into overtime - but they didn’t have to wait long for the rivalry redux, as a couple of days later, both Carlsen and Nakamura went head-to-head yet again in the opening day of the AI Cup, the sixth and final leg of the 2023 Champions Chess Tour regular season.

Bossing It

By John B. Henderson • September 25, 2023
Magnus Carlsen more than lived up to his self-proclamation of being “The Final Boss of Chess” with a revenge-is-sweet narrow victory over fellow chess influencer Hikaru Nakamura, as he denied his long-time arch-rival a sixth successive Chess.com Speed Chess Championship title last Friday. Last year, it was Nakamura who narrowly squeaked home by one point - this time, in yet another thrilling match consisting of three different speed limits - 5+1, 3+1 and 1+1 (more commonly known as ‘bullet’) - between the two speed titans, it again ended with the same scoreline, though this time seeing Carlsen triumph by a solitary win after two pulsating hours of thrilling play, as he took the $150,000 2023 Speed Chess Championship presented by Coinbase, 13.5-12.5.

Death, Taxes, Magnus & Hikaru

By John B. Henderson • September 22, 2023
With a smorgasbord of online chess events out there now, the granddaddy of them all is surely the Chess.com Speed Chess Championship , with a $150,000 prize fund that determines just who is the best blitz and bullet players. It has become the perennial fan-favourite with arguably the best viewing experience - and the fans are set for yet another spectacular finale later today, as the two rivals who dominate the roll of honour, Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura, get set for another explosive showdown in the 2023 final. Friday’s final and commentary, free to view, starts at 14:00 ET (11:00 PT; 20:00 CEST; 23:30 IST) on Chess.com. Carlsen and Nakamura have won each edition since the inaugural Speed Chess Championship event in 2016 - Carlsen won the first two speed titles before taking a hiatus, only for Nakamura to rule the roost, winning four more times.

A Messi Kid

By John B. Henderson • September 19, 2023
India today is a land of amazing young talents and prospects in chess, with the country seemingly having a never-ending production line of prodigies rolling off the factory conveyor belt. But for some countries, such as Argentina, prodigies only seem to come around with all the regularity of Halley’s Comet . One of the first notable post-war chess prodigies was Oscar Panno from Buenos Aires, who became the first world-class player born in South America. In 1953, at the age of 17, he became only the second World Junior Champion , having won the coveted youth title ahead of a strong cadre of future elite-level Grandmasters such as Boris Ivkov (who in 1951 was crowned the first World Junior Ch), Bent Larsen, and Fredrik Olafsson.

The Great Rook 'n' Roll Swindle

By John B. Henderson • September 14, 2023
“Chess is a cruel game. We all know that feeling when your position has gone awry and everything seems hopeless. You feel like resigning. But don’t give up! This is precisely the moment to switch to swindle mode. Master the art of provoking errors and you will be able to turn the tables and escape with a draw or sometimes even steal the full point!” So wrote David Smerdon, an Australian chess grandmaster and one of his country’s leading behavioural economists, on the back cover of his witty and wickedly entertaining, not to mention the much-lauded and deserving 2020 ECF Book of the Year winner, The Complete Chess Swindler (New in Chess).

No Country For Young Men

By John B. Henderson • September 11, 2023
With the top teenage talents being overshadowed in the Tata Steel Chess India Rapid in Kolkata by a dominant performance from seasoned veteran Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, there were hopes of a homeland comeback in the follow-on Blitz tournament - and one looked to be on the cards, only for another “old guy”, this time Alexander Grischuk, crashing the teenage party by capturing the second, even faster speed title. Early doors, all eyes were firmly on Rameshbabu “Pragg” Praggnanandhaa, with his flying start of a perfect 5/5 on the opening day of the two-day double-round contest. But that was as good as it got for the 18-year-old Candidate-qualifier, who could only finish the day on 6.5/9, and despite being the sole leader, he held what looked a very slender half-point lead over nearest rivals Santosh Vidit and Grischuk, ominously the only unbeaten player.

My Indian Summer

By John B. Henderson • September 8, 2023
The past couple of years have proved to be a major one for India - not only a global player with world leaders descending this week in New Delhi for the G20 Summit and recently successfully landing a spacecraft on the moon but now also a fully-fledged chess superpower, with many exciting young talents set to make the country a dominant force for the foreseeable future. Many would even speculate that Indian Chess could well turn into a hegemony, in much the same way as the Soviets dominated the chess scene in the 1945 post-war period until its collapse and ultimate dissolution in 1991. The latest big chess tournament to be held in India coincides with the G20, with the fifth Tata Steel Chess India Rapid & Blitz - a spinoff from the larger Dutch super-tournament, the Tata Steel Chess Masters in Wijk aan Zee - taking place 5-9 September in Kolkata.

Me & The Kids

By John B. Henderson • September 4, 2023
The fifth and latest leg of the Champions Chess Tour , the Julius Baer Generations Cup more than lived up to its name with the world No.1, Magnus Carlsen, after overpowering Alireza Firouzja in the winners’ final, to effortlessly cruise his way into the Grand Final, declaring: “It’s just me against the kids now!” After three clean kills that included a brace of back-to-back 2½-½ victories over Iranian Amin Tabatabaei and his old title foe Caruana, Carlsen proceeded to sweep Firouzja 3-0 to reach the Grand Final of the contest - but it wasn’t lost on the “old man” that non of his old rivals were left in the competition, and that meant that Denis Lazavik (16), Nodirbek Abdusattorov (18), and Firouzja (20) were the only three left standing to see who would go forward to meet him in the Grand Final.
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