Americans in Europe, Continued
August 16, 2010
Holland:
After a great 2.5/3 start at the NH Chess Tournament in Amsterdam (August 12-22), Hikaru Nakamura faltered with a loss to Peter Svidler in round four.

4750

In round five, Nakamura's woes continued as he struggles at the time of writing in a tough rook endgame against World Cup Champion Boris Gelfand. Update: The game is over, and Hikaru is now on an even score. Tomorrow (Tuesday) is a rest day.

4753
 
NakaGelfand.jpg
Nakamura in his fifth round battle against Gelfand, Photo Cathy Rogers


Hungary:
Ray Robson finished with 3/10 in the strong double round robin, the Gyorgy Marx Memorial (August 5-16, Paks, Hungary). A bright spot of his difficult tournament was his fascinating tactical struggle against legendary Dutch GM Jan Timman.

4749

Parker225.jpg
Parker Zhao, Photo Suzy Gorman for CCSCSL
Meanwhile in Hungary, Parker Zhao is blazing through the August IM section of the First Saturday tournament series in Hungary. After eight rounds, he has 7/8 and with a TPR of almost 2600 and has clinched an IM norm with a round to go.  In the US Junior Closed last month at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis, Parker tied for first (losing the title on tiebreak to IM Sam Shankland.) In Saint Louis, Parker particularly impressed with his clean attacking games with White.  He continued the trend in Budapest:

4746

4747

4748

Poland

Marc Arnold finished the World Junior (Chotowa, Poland, August 2-17) with 7.5/13 while Alisa Melekhina scored 8.5/13 in the Girls Under 20. See final standings in the World Junior and the Girls Section.

Alisa's attacking style helped her rack up points, like the following slashing win over Anya Corke of England.

4751

Also play through Marc Arnold's important Najdorf win over Brazilian GM Andre Diamant.

4752

The champions were Dmitry Andreikin of Russia for the World Junior and Anna Muzychuk of Slovenia in the Girls Under 20.

Greece

GMs Josh Friedel and Robert Hess both have 4/5 in the Negroponte tournament in Greece. You can download bulletins and watch live games on the official site. 

Montreal

They do say that Montreal is the closest you can get to Europe in North America! Our North American Youth squad travels to Montreal, Canada (August 16-19).See a list of participants on the official site. Here are the players representing the USA:

Under 8

Praveen Balakrishnan
Grant Giovannetti
Aravind Kumar
Marcus Miyasaka
David Zhurbinsky

Under 8 Girls

Akshita Gorti
Grace Sowa

Under 10

Daniel Kubrynski
Albert Lu
Daniel Matlin
Michael Matlin
Matthew Miyasaka
Kadhir Pillai
Zachary Chen Tanenbaum
Jeffrey Xiong
Frederick Zhao

Under 10 Girls

Runjie (Jennifer) Liu
Samritha Palakollu
Shayna Provine

Under 12

Jacob Burman
Michael Chen
Peter Chen
Joshua Colas
Simon Kubrynski
Matthew Lim
Michael Kim
Edward Song
Justus Williams

Under 12 Girls

Kimberly Ding
Rachel Gita Gologorsky
Jennifer Lu
Apurva Virkud

Under 14

Andrew Ding
Brian Li
Jay Regam
Arthur Shen

Under 14 Girls

Jessica Regam
Eve Zhurbinskiy

Under 16

Michael Chiang
Alex Fikiet
Stuary Finney
William Fisher
Miles Gamble Hinson
Andrew Ng

Under 16 Girls

Fiona Lam
Anna Matlin
Darrian Robinson

Under 18

Victor Shen

Under 18 Girls

Yang Dai
Dianna Hu

Watch live games on Monroi.com and see an interview with Jeffrey Xiong on chesscampeona.com.