Conrad Holt wins the U.S. Cadet Championship. Tyler Hughes and Gregory Young tied for first at the U.S. Junior Championship. Hughes won on tiebreak. Congratulations to all three!
U.S. Junior Championship
The field: Tyler Hughes, Gregory Young, Daniel Yeager, Edward Lu, Bradley Sawyer (withdrew in the middle of the championship), Chris Williams (withdrew right before the championship)
U.S. Cadet Championship
The field: Conrad Holt, Deepak Aaron, Shvartsman, Richard Tuhrim, Darwin Yang, Alex Markobitz, Patrick Tae
These are supposed to be 2 of the most prestigious junior tournaments in the country. Most of the biggest names in the past competed in these events. The usual format in the past was either a 10 or 12 player round robin (at least for the US Junior).
This year, by midway through the tournament, there were only 4 players left. I believe that this is the smallest field ever. The big problem is the USCF scheduled these events during final’s week and many of the top players, especially on the East coast, could not participate.
IM Robert Hess (2539) wrote to me and complained about this problem. He said that he and some of his friends cannot compete unless the USCF moves the dates back by about 10 days to 2 weeks. I tried to contact the USCF to fix this problem but it was already too late to change.
I know the people in Lindsborg personally and they did their best to put on a good show. They submitted a bid and I am not sure why the USCF did not check the dates to see if schools are still in session. These young players cannot simply take off 10-11 days during final’s week to compete.
Here is the top list of young players and you can see for yourself how many top players did not compete.
What is your take?
More details about the tournament can be found on http://www.fpawn.blogspot.com/
This is an embarrassing field. The highest rated player here is ranked outside of the top 20 juniors. Another major screw up by the USCF.
The USCF should stop organizing tournaments. They should only stick to rating and magazine. What a bunch of incompetent ….
Are you serious? 4 players in the US Junior Championship instead of 12? 7 in the Cadet? Why is Goichberg still the President? This is incredible.
For the record, the US Junior normally has 10 players and the US Cadet has 8.
A lot that went wrong going into the 2008 US Cadet and US Junior. Some school districts still had final exams. Some of the top players (who would have played in US Junior) were previously committed to the Kasparov camp this weekend, with no idea that the US Junior/Cadet were that same weekend. Some potential competitors were contacted a week or two before round 1, too late to get a reasonable airfare to Kansas. One person said he couldn’t get a last minute reservation at Lindsborg’s only hotel. Combined with the expensive travel, the USCF had cut back on stipends to the players, which in the early 2000s covered their full travel costs. And finally, a few eligible kids didn’t even received an invitation, even though lower rated players participated.
GM Polgar, FM Truong: Please make sure that whoever handles these events next year does so in a professional manner, not like some little league sandlot team.
Michael Aigner
The players in the US Junior were ranked #16, #38, #67, #73 and #87 on the April U21 top 100 list. In most years, the US Junior attracts about 8 of the top 20 juniors and maybe 1 or 2 slightly lower rated participants.
FINAL STANDINGS of 2001 US Junior:
7.5 Hikaru Nakamura(2412)
6.5 David Pruess(2375) and Dmitry Schneider(2518)
5.5 Vinay Bhat(2494)
4.5 Andrei Zaremba(2367)
4.0 Philip Wang(2348)
3.0 Justin Sarkar(2438) and Todd Andrews(2336)
2.5 Steven Winer(2412)
2.0 Asuka Nakamura(2162)
🙂 Don’t be so harsh on the Little League sandlot baseball teams. They usually know when school lets out, when their top players can play and when the fields are available. And they always have good away arrangements.
Daniel Naroditsky got his invitation about 1 month before the event (still too late – we already made reservations for Kasparov’s Master Class). We sent the letter to the organizer telling them that the event conflicts with the Master Class and Daniel would not be able to attend the Cadet. Three weeks later Daniel got the letter saying that he is wait-listed for US Junior.
Still, it does not beat the invitation to Pan Am Youth Festival in Brazil three years ago – 18 hours before the event started!
It is just very sad….
Vladimir Naroditsky