Ashburn sends top student to Moscow Open

Ashburn Chess Club is sending it’s top student to the Moscow Open, an international tournament being held in Moscow, Russia from February 1 to February 10.  The club has provided the tickets and spending money during the tournament.

Justin Lohr, 13, became the official representative of the club when he won the Annual Ashburn  Scholastics Round-Robin last summer.  He will be accompanied by his father, Phil Lohr, and will participate in Tournament C of the Open, which are for players rated under 2300 FIDE rating.  IM Nikolay Andrianov, Lohr’s Ashburn trainer will also accompany him and serve as his second and adviser during the tournament.  A chess second usually analyses the game with the player after each round. 

Lohr emerged as the top student in the Road to Mastery program in 2012.  He has already achieved an United States Chess Federation expert level of 2000, which is just a rung below that of a master.  Lohr also led the amateur team of the Ashburn Chess Club in the DC Chess League, which established Ashburn as one of the strongest chess clubs in the DC area.  The club won both the Open and the Amateur section in the 2012 winter league.  Aside from IM Andrianov, Lohr was trained by FIDE masters Paolo del Mundo and Dov Gorman.

Lohr has been a student of the Road to Mastery program.  The goal of the program is to produce expert level students, who can better prepare themselves to become a master by participating in high level chess competitions.  “An international exposure like the Moscow Open expands the child’s awareness on what it takes to become a master,” says ACC’s Executive Director Herky del Mundo.  He says that he wanted Ashburn players to experience international competitions, just as his son FM Paolo del Mundo did, who grew up participating in places such as Hungary, Spain, Brazil, India and Manila.

A new Road to Mastery semestral program is to start soon.  FM Paolo del Mundo leads the instructors together with veteran teachers Raymond Duchesne and Scott Knoke. More information and registration are available at:

Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
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