Sunday in San Diego: Yang Leads Among Flurry of Upsets
By Anatoly Ostrovsky   
April 6, 2014
darwin_yang.jpgThe most exhausting day of 2014 High School Nationals is in the books. When three hard working rounds were finished, top seed GM-Elect Darwin Yang (2590) is the sole leader of the tournament with a perfect 5 out of 5.

Monta Vista High School Team from Cupertino CA is still ahead by a half  of point with 14.5 out of 20; four other teams trail by just half a point, including reigning champions from Edward Murrow High School, Brooklyn, NY; Kennedy Middle School also from Cupertino, CA; Thomas Jefferson High School from Alexandria, VA and Newark Academy from Livingston, NJ.   

Round three saw some major upsets- FM Cameron Wheeler lost to an Expert, Alexander Xie; SM Sam Schmakel lost to NM Nathaniel Kranjc. 

One of our most distinguished national scholastic chess players Justus Williams (2383) lost to an Expert from Oregon Aaron Grabinsky (2181); Justus is the reigning 2013 US Cadet champ, 2013 US Junior Open champ, 2013 National 10th Grade (as well as 2012 National 9th Grade) champ, but is not likely to add the overall High school title this year.

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In round 4, the #2 seed of the tournament (and my son) IM Aleksandr Ostrovskiy (2532) was taken down by NM Jarod Pamatmat (2302):

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In the tense game Alex blundered badly with his 41st move. Interestingly, Jarod was with Alex in the United States Chess School Session here in San Diego six years ago I mentioned in my previous article.

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Jarod Pamatmat. San Diego, 2008

FM Justus Williams (2383)  lost again to Texan player Oscar Osornio (1728), who in the previous round beat Haik Der Manuelian from NJ (2175). Not too bad for a Class B player!

 
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Oscar Osornio (1728)  in preparation for his round 5 game vs. IM Aleksandr Ostrovskiy (2532). Finally, he was not able to produce an upset.

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All NMs Andrew Tang, Jarod Pamatmat and Jonathan Homidan were perfect going to round 5, but only Darwin Yang was able to keep perfection after the round.

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The key game of round 6 is going to be board 1 game SM Joshua Colas from Mamaroneck, NY and Darwin Yang, so stay tuned for updates!

Find the pairings and results page here.