From left to right, the streamers are IM Eric Rosen, Eliana Lopez, GM Ben Finegold, Elayah, Sara Herman and IM Kostya Kavutskiy

Our streamers for the National Open were gracious enough to give their time for a panel Q&A followed by a meet and greet. Thank you to Elayah who provided a live stream of this. Elayah will be competing in her first rated tournament, playing in the Beginners Section. You can follow her via Twitch this weekend at https://www.twitch.tv/elaynah

The information for our other streamers can be found HERE

Kickoff for the International Youth

Chess is an activity lends itself to prodigies. Not everyone can become the next Magnus Carlsen, but everyone has the ability to make a positive impact on the game of life, where it is always your move.

The youth tournaments have continued to be a growing event here at the National Open! The Youth Trophy had four sections with 374 combined entrants, shattering last years total of 225. Congrats to Ochir Jargalsaikhan in the Premier and Jack Chong in the Reserve with a perfect 5/5 score and clear first. There were two perfect scores in the Booster with Roy Chen edging out Jolin Jiang on tiebreaks. The Novice section was by far the largest section, with nearly as entrants than the other sections combined with an impressive 174 entrants. Joseph Paglia, Yalong Yang, and Evan Wei emerge with perfect 5/5 scores with Joseph coming in first on tiebreaks.

Teaching chess around the globe

Chess provides opportunities. In the streamers panel, IM Rosen mentioned how chess has become a vehicle for him to explore the world. While a Minnesota patzer like me gets an opportunity to come down to a glitzy man-made city like Las Vegas, this could have not been more true for Jack Heller, 17, a high school student at Walter Payton College Prep in Chicago who truly gets to experience the real world 6,000 miles away. Jack was chosen by the Chicago Chess Foundation to be a part of a wonderful exchange program to teach youths chess in Ghana.

For more information about Jack’s story and the cause, here are the following links:
Chicago Chess Foundation CBS Chicago NNY

Track(s) of the Day, Heller-Timergazi

Jack Heller had a rocky start to the tournament, but has rebounded with back to back wins. This last game is against WIM Layla Timergazi, an upset vs a titled player with some notes by Jack.

Track(s) of the Day Neimann-Nyzhnyk

Top seeds facing each other in Round 6. Illya, with Black counters the Queens Gambit with a Semi-Slav while onlookers are hoping this will turn into something Fully-Exciting. Both played a relatively accurate game according to chess.com. After locking up the center, play turned to the wings and Hans was able to breakthrough on the a-file.

Armchair analysis with a +3500 elo rated engine, six-core gaming PC, RGB mouse in one hand and a Wetzels Pretzel in the other could crank out a interesting multi move plan involving a breakthrough-piece sacrifice in milliseconds, but try telling a mortal being to find this sequence of moves. Time, pressure, and various other factors are reasons we are human and moves may get missed. The last thing this patzer is gonna do is go up to Hans Niemann, who has had a recent stay in the 2700 Club and say, “What happened on move 23, bro?” Both players played a hard fought game, and I for one will appreciate it for what it is. Well played and well earned draw!

…And Party Every day

Friday morning started off with the annual Grandmaster Camps, open to all who are eager to learn from highly trained instructors, or wanting to get some advice before competing in the National Open or the International Youth Championship. Thank you to our wonderful instructors for making this possible: Melik GM Melik Khachiyan, Mike Zaloznyy, Dylan Quercia, JJ Lang, GM Fidel Corrales, GM Var Akobian, and GM Ben Finegold

Third Time’s the Charm!

Our first Champion has been crowned, congrats to Zijun Zhou, US Women’s Open Champion. This has been Zijun’s third time playing in this event and takes clear first with a perfect 5-0 record! Our track(s) of the day will feature an upset win vs WCM Yesun Lee, en route to her perfect score. Thank you for all who competed and helped make this a record turnout!

I just want your Master Time, and your…

…KISS
Regardless of how strong you are, playing a single game is taxing enough, let alone over 20 at the same time. We are thankful for IM Eric Rosen and GM Ben Finegold for putting on quite a display. After the simul, both mentioned how exhausted they were and how much concentration it took to play. Pictured here is Jaden Marx, where the fearless Rosen managed to convert a lost rook endgame into a position where he managed to force Jaden to convert a K+Q vs K+R but ended up turning into a draw. Definitely not the easiest position to turn into a victory, especially when a clock is on the game, a valiant effort by Jaden. Eric ended up going 15-3-3 and Ben went 22-2-1, very impressive!

Track(s) of the Day, Lee-Zhou

Track(s) of the Day, Finegold-Miettinen

Track(s) of the Day, Rosen-Fan

Click on the following to links for our following streamers:

GM Ben Finegold
https://www.youtube.com/@GMBenjaminFinegold
https://www.twitch.tv/itsbenandkaren
https://twitter.com/ben_finegold

IM Eric Rosen
https://www.youtube.com/@eric-rosen
https://twitter.com/IM_Rosen
https://www.twitch.tv/imrosen
https://imrosen.com/

IM Kostya Kavutskiy

Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/hellokostya
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@IMKostyaKavutskiy
Official Site: https://www.hellokostya.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/hellokostya
Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/hellokostya
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KostyaKavutskiy/
Blog: www.chess.com/blog/hellokostya

Sara Herman
https://www.twitch.tv/zefcatt
https://www.instagram.com/zefcatt/
https://twitter.com/ZefCatt
https://www.tiktok.com/@zefcatt

Elaynah
https://www.youtube.com/@elaynah
https://www.twitch.tv/elaynah
https://www.instagram.com/elaynahbb/
https://twitter.com/elehnah
https://www.tiktok.com/@elaynahhh

Eliana Lopez
https://www.instagram.com/chessxercise/
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100058194677775
https://chessxercise.com/

Welcome to Opening Day of the Las Vegas International Chess Festival at the Rio, a change from our previous home the last few years at the Westgate. The show will go on, and the tracks will keep rolling as we bid adieu to Elvis and welcome KISS. The KISS World Museum has been open since 2022, and also features a miniature golf course which is also another highlight of things to do this week. Featured here is the last hole of the course, and managed to ace the hole. As far as the other 17…a gentleman does not KISS and tell.

US Womens Open Rounds 1-3

2022 Co-Champions Sandhya Goli and Badamkhand Norovsambuu look to repeat as the Womens Open champion. Another notable entrant is Ranya Yan who is the youngest competitor in this event. Ranya is only six, and the 7th highest ranked girl under the age of 7.

National Open Round 1

Top seeds GM Hans Niemann (2695) and GM Illia Nyzhnyk (2641) won their opening round. Illia had a strong performance in the 2022 National Open taking 2nd with no signs of slowing down with a 3rd place showing in the 1000GM Las Vegas Super Swiss this past weekend, also at the Rio. Niemann won the Super Swiss in a thrilling Blitz playoff against GM Mikhail Antipov. There are quite a few individuals that have elected to compete in both events, will Hans be able to fend off all competitors this weekend?

Track(s) of the Day, Dhanasekaran-Yan

The top games can be found online, but here is a look at Ranya Yan’s first win in Round 3. As mentioned, Ranya is nationally ranked for her age group and a bright future ahead of her. Listed at 1258 for the supplement, she gained nearly 200 points in the last two tournaments. Rounds 1 and 2 have not gone her way, but came through to close off the day as Black with the Caro-Kann. Both sides had attacking chances and Ranya maintained an edge for most of the game. On move 35, there was an opportunity for Neha (995) to pull off a dramatic perpetual check, but was not seen by her. Please enjoy!

Track(s) of the Day, Kaplan-Neimann