Left to Right. Jeffrey Xiong, Kayden Troff, Rex Sinquefield, Sam Sevian and Ashritha Eswaran, with Garry Kasparov, seated.By Brian Jerauld
This story was originally published on stlpublicradio.org on June 18.
Thursday night marks the opening ceremony of the 2014 U.S. Junior Closed Championship, the national title event for the top players under 21. The tournament is the third installment of America’s Championships annually hosted by the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of St. Louis, a parallel to the U.S. Championship and Women’s event, which took place simultaneously last month.
The event suffers from the same shortfall of attention as any junior-varsity sport -- you won’t see fans travel as they will for the U.S. Championships -- though it’s not a necessarily fair application here. Inferior, lower-level play that may otherwise mar the viewing pleasure of another sport brings quite the opposite to chess: Mistakes are how the game thrives, a constant battle between opportunity both created and missed, leaving this “almost-there” level event as a regular hidden gem for fanatics.
Annually, the Junior Closed delivers excellent drama, setting up big-stage pressure under lights that shine on ambitious risk. The tournament features regular tactical brilliance -- any one round could surprise explosively or implosively -- and as a result, storylines stay deep and tension-filled throughout the tournament. ...