GMs Varuzhan Akobian, Melikset Khachiyan and FM Samuel Sevian have scored one point each out of two in the U.S. finals in Saint Louis. In the second round, Sevian, with black pieces, drew with GM Yury Shulman.

WGM Tatev Abrahamian beat WGM Camilla Baginskaite in the Women’s finals. Tatev has 2 points, and leads the contest together with WGMs Anna Zatonskih and Irina Krush, armchess.am reported.

Three Armenian chess players GMs Varuzhan Akobian, Melikset Khachiyan, and FM Samuel Sevian are among the 24 participants in the USA Championship that will start Friday in Saint Louis.

WGM Tatev Abrahamian is along with the ten participants in the USA Women’s Championship also to be held in Saint Louis. GM Karen Movsziszian (Armenia) tallied 5 points after six rounds and he leads, jointly with five other participants, at the open being held on Mallorca Island, Spain. GM Sergey Kasparov (Belarus) is half a point behind the current leaders.

GM Krikor Sevag Mekhitarian (Brazil) garnered 6 points after eight rounds in the World Championship Zonal 2.4 contest being held in Ponta Negra, Brazil. Mekhitarian is only half a point behind the current leaders—GMs Rafael Leitao, Alexandr Fier, and IM Diego Rafael Di Bernardino (Brazil). CM Armen Proudian (Brazil) tallied 5.5 points so far, Armchess.am reports.

Filipino Grand Masters Darwin Laylo and Oliver Barbosa finished in a tie for second place, while GM Zhao Zong-Yuan of Australia took the contest at the 2013 Bangkok Chess Club contest in Thailand on Sunday.

Zhao halved the point with International Master (IM) Wan Yunguo of China after just three moves of the King’s Indian protection in the final round, to finish with 7.5 points on six wins and three draws in the Open part.

Meanwhile, Laylo toppled GM Susanto Megaranto of Indonesia after 38 moves of Old Benoni defense, while Barbosa routed IM Roy Saptarshi of India after 40 moves of Queen’s Pawn game. Laylo and Barbosa ruined in a six-way tie for second place.

After the tie-break points were practical, China’s Wan wound up in second place, followed by GM Jan Gustafsson of Germany was in third place. GM Levente Vajda of Romania ended fourth, GM Hansen Sune Berg of Denmark, in fifth and Laylo at sixth place. Barbosa wound up at seventh.

GM Rogelio Antonio Jr. finished with 6.5 points and landed at eighth place after tear the point with IM Wang Chen of China after 48 moves of Sicilian defense in the final round. GM Mark Paragua settled for a ceasefire with GM Kulkarni Bhakti of India after 39 moves of the Scandinavian protection, Fide Master (FM) Hamed Nouri drew with GM Lu Shanglei of China after 49 moves of Vienna opening, and GM John Paul Gomez compressed IM Mas Hafizulhelmi of Malaysia.

The three Filipino chessers tallied 6.0 points each, plummeting them to a share of 17th to 38th places. Paragua wound up in 20th place over-all, Hamed in 21st overall and Gomez, 25th. In the contestant part of the contest, Filipino chesser Marvin Tang lost to Russian FM Sergey Birjukov in the seventh and final round, but still emerged as overall winner.

Tang had better tie-break points next to fellow six-pointers Birjukov, Atul Kumar of India, Andrian Endang of Indonesia and Dongre Chandrakant of India. National Master Rudy Ibanez, John Kristoffer de Leon, Angelito Camer and Christine Joyce Dacayo-Paragua tallied 5.0 points each and were joined for ninth to 17th places.

The Coalinga Chess Club won a national championship for the third straight year at a contest in San Francisco last weekend. The club’s 20 and under team tied for first place with the Bay Area Chess team of Fremont at the U.S. National Junior Chess Congress contest Saturday and Sunday and will share the title, Coalinga coach Ed Wong said.

The Mendota Chess Team, coached by Vaness French, placed third in the same division. Wong’s sons — Blake, 14, Brett, 12, and Bryce, 11 made up the winning 20 and under Coalinga team. In the individual opposition, Blake tied for second, Bryce placed fourth and Brett was fifth.

The Coalinga club won the 18 and under countrywide contest at the same contest the past two years.We were very fortunate this time, Ed Wong said.Our players had to come from behind against stiff opposition in the last two rounds.

The Bay Area team also draws players from the San Jose area, Wong said. This was a club competition, so we fundamentally were playing all-star teams, he said. Bryan Wong, 8, another of Wong’s sons, tied for 17th in the 8 and under division.

Coalinga also has won 12 Southern California scholastic State Chess Championships titles in the past six years. Members of the Mendota team that finished third in San Francisco in the 20 and under division were Sergio Mayares, 17, and Joel Montalvo and Julian Estrada, both 19.

Mendota placed second in the 18 and under division. Team members were Charles Ledesma and Kevin Romero, both 17, and Lizzy Gonzalez, 18. Ledesma was fifth in the individual competition.

In the 16 and under allotment, Mendota was fourth. Team members were Jose Caldedrio and Luis Castro, both 16, Gaston Aganza and Anthonio Rojas, both 15, and William Yim, 14. Caldedrio placed highest — 15th — in the personality conflict.

He went about mowing down challenger after challenger in traditional style. It was only against IM Malcolm Pein that Super-GM Michael Adams had a few nervous moments (he won in the end). The Festival took place in the comfortable surroundings of the Library Room in the Bunratty Castle Hotel from February 27th to March 3rd. We bring you a graphic report by Gery Graham.

The 20th Bunratty Chess Festival took place in the Bunratty Castle Hotel from February 27th to March 3rd 2013 and worried over 300 players for the first time since 2005. This event is without hesitation, the strongest weekender in Ireland but this year, it wasn’t just a weekender, we also had the opening Bunratty Chess Classic, a nine-round FIDE rated standard event.

This event started on Wednesday afternoon and finished about the same time as the weekender, on Sunday evening. It was hoped that one of the Irish players might score a norm here, but alas, as can be seen by the results here, this wasn’t to be. It is hoped that this event will be run again next year giving our home players another fracture at the norms on home soil.

The traditional weekender was a massive achievement, the masters section being the main appeal, as usual. The top two seeds were the same as last year, England’s two super GMs, Michael Adams and Nigel Short. We also had two other GMs as well as many IMs and FMs to do fight for the €1,000 first prize and the crystal award too.

The first round did see a few disturb as David Murray drew with Peter Wells and Anthony Fox with Lawrence Trent. The only seed to lose was Fiona Steil Antoni from Luxemburg, the girlfriend of Vladimir Hamitevici, who went down to Arno Eliens of Holland in a close battle. The second round shaped another disturb when Philip Short beat Alexander Baburin in this game.

An exhilarating round for sure, regardless they require of critical results. Boris Gelfand played a Najdorf against his 2012 World Championship challenger Viswanathan Anand, forfeits a pawn and was able to hold him to a draw in 42 moves. Vladimir Kramnik used a Benoni against Fabiano Caruana and had the benefit in a well-fought draw. Guess who dropped in to assist with the comments.

In one of the strongest contest of the year the World Champion Viswanathan Anand (India) is facing the former title-holder Vladimir Kramnik (Russia), last year’s World competition challenger Boris Gelfand (Israel) and the rising star Fabiano Caruana (Italy). At the Savoy Hotel, Paradeplatz, Zurich, the four masters are playing a double round-robin contest from 23 February to 1 March 2013.

This unusual line of the Najdorf gave Black excellent recompense for a sacrificed central pawn. However, after Gelfand missed the very strong 14… Bxh3! Anand seemed to be firmly in control, with strong potential of combine his material gains. Some hesitant decisions allowed the Israeli to cripple White’s queenside pawn understanding and safe the game.

Kramnik was in no mood to defend a passive Catalan spot, so he used the sharp Benoni! However, he may have regretted this choice well before the 20th move, as Caruana had a strong positional advantage and everything seemed to be going his way. For some odd reason the Italian GM allowed a series of unusual tactics that landed him in a bizarre position, far from the clear benefit he was holding in the opening. After some precise moves the position sadly fizzled into a draw.