2013 U.S. Cadet Championship
2013 U.S. Cadets (L-R): Justus Williams, Ruifeng Li, Michael Brown, Joshua Colas, Christopher Wu, Varun Krishnan, James Black, David Hua.
The 2013 U.S. Cadet Championship will begin today with eight of the top juniors under the age of 16. The tournament will take place July 20th-22nd at the Rockville Hilton in Baltimore, Maryland. Defending champion Michael Bodek is not eligible and has picked up IM norms since the Cadets.
This year, the field is led by returnees Josh Colas (2398), Justus Williams (2374) and David Hua (2373). In fact six of the eight players return from last year!
The players are vying for a four-year college scholarship offered by the University of Maryland-Baltimore County (UMBC). The winner will receive the full ride. The top three players will receive free entry into the Washington International which begin August 5th. The entire field is as follows:
July 20th-22nd, 2013 (Baltimore, Maryland) |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
#
|
Name
|
Title
|
Federation
|
State
|
Rating
|
| 1 | Colas, Joshua | NM | USA | NY | 2398 |
| 2 | Williams, Justus | NM | USA | NY | 2374 |
| 3 | Hua, David | NM | USA | NJ | 2373 |
| 4 | Krishnan, Varun | NM | USA | CA | 2346 |
| 5 | Brown, Michael | NM | USA | CA | 2343 |
| 6 | Li, Ruifeng | CM | USA | TX | 2326 |
| 7 | Black Jr, James | NM | USA | NY | 2310 |
| 8 | Wu, Christopher | NM | USA | NJ | 2293 |
The Cadets have a pre-tournament meal together. Good times!
The usually consistent Justus Williams had an interesting past couple of tourneys. At the NY International, He lost to a 1796 and drew an 1838 en route to a 30 point plummet in his rating.
He followed that up by gaining 22 points back at the World Open; beating a 2621 GM, drawing a 2640 GM, beating a 2506 IM, and beating a 2432 along the way!
This Rueifeng Li kid is a tough nut to crack! I spoke with Josh and reminded him about the significance of spending quality time at his board. I think he got the message and he will share it with James and Justus as well.
Bc6+ caught me off guard as well! I thought Josh was on his way to an amazing come back and out of nowhere, bang! That’s chess for you.
Entertaining stuff! Good luck to the “young warriors”!
The mystical FIDE mystifies me again. CM Ruifeng Li is the only player with a FIDE title because he came in second at the 2011 World Youth Chess Championship U 10 open section scoring a 7/9. The average rating of his rated opponents was only 1842. Two of his opponents were unrated, including Yi Zhu of China who won the section and as a result automatically gained the FM title and has a current and peak rating of 2083. You have just crossed over into the FIDE zone.
You are too care about their titles. They earned their titles, not grabbed them from somewhere. We should respect their achievements and give them encouragemnet.International players’ rating could be much lower than their actual level, and some of them could be unrated, that does not mean their level must be low. We can not expect every country has the same system like U.S.
Titles and rating may not mean everything. But the tournaments’ results do reflect their thue level, and need to be respected. If Li’s real level is so low as you described, how could he be abole to perform so well during big tournaments?
Interesting games.
So far I am very satisfied with the way the young lions are fighting. Just told them Atlanta will be watching round 6 on big screen. My job is to see where there can be improvement. With that, I advised Josh to use the extra time he seems to always have to do deep analysis in the end game. They still lack discipline, they get up and down too much from their seats.
It seems ‘Justus-like’ that he got a win over the leader after things weren’t looking too good . Two of the three top seeds sit at the bottom of the standings in a very tight tourney. This is very entertaining and the coverage is excellent.
Congrats to Justus! Blitz is an important asset for sure!
I realized after round 5 that Justus had Josh and Christopher left to play and that a win or a draw by Josh would be good individually but would not bode well for the Young Lions given his position in the standings at the time. Plus I believe Justus has a good record against both players.
BTW James won the Young Lion mini-tournament by going 1.5 against the higher rated Lions 🙂
Things turned out for the best in the given situation. Lesson for Josh, time management towards the end of the game and increase focus for James midway through the games.
My congratulations to Justus…what a fine tournament, especially going 3/3 in the last 3 rounds to force the playoff, and then winning the playoff to win the title outright and the full college scholarship that goes with it!
In addition to being the first African-American to win the U.S. Cadet Championship, Justus now has another record: most national championships won by an African-American. With this title (his 5th), he has officially broken my record, which I had held for the past 20 years :). Congratulations to Justus…I know the future is secure with you, Josh, and James — truly worthy of being called the Big Three. May the Lord bless you and keep you.
Sincerely,
Shearwood “Woody” McClelland III, M.D.
Congratulations from the Jamaican chess fraternity to all the players for an exciting event. Of course, special commendation must go to Master Williams, for his determined, spirited play and victory. After an inauspicious start he displayed qualities reminiscent of my alma mater’s motto: “FORTIS CADERE CEDERE NON POTEST: THE BRAVE MAY FALL BUT NEVER YIELD”!
This was the first time my wife went with Josh to a tournament since he started playing and she told me Josh was unsure of himself throughout and complained about having to play Justus last round.So, your observation is correct. I will make sure to be with him this weekend in Wisconsin for the Denker. Justus was focused and played with keen determination.
It’s interesting that Josh does so well in blitz which is very high stress. But then again, he does well against people he’s not expected to beat or hold. In the recent World Open 7-minute championship he held that blitzer from Cuba who is a GM with a 2711 blitz rating.