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.

Webster University won the Final Four of college chess in Rockville, Md., over the weekend, while St. John Vianney High School took top honors in its separation in the U.S. Chess Federation’s Supernationals V K-12 contest in Nashville.

The wins are the latest nod to St. Louis, home of the World Chess Hall of Fame, as it tries to set up itself as the chess mecca.As quietly as the game is played, so are its contest celebrations quiet compared with mainstream collegiate football and basketball competitions. About 100 people gathered Monday in a Webster University self-service restaurant to welcome their charming team home.

Some hooted and hollered. Other students watched curiously from a detachment as they ate lunch in silence. Julian Schuster, provost at Webster and chess enthusiast, told the crowd that the win came from hard work and dream.

Webster’s bid to become a chess inspiration happened just nine months after luring grandmaster and Coach Susan Polgar away from Texas Tech University in Lubbock. Traditionally thought of as a man’s game, Polgar has not only broken the mold, but subjugated. Originally from Hungary, this is her third nationwide collegiate chess contest in a row as head coach.

Two of the six players on Webster’s winning team followed her from Lubbock. The four others recently came to Webster to play chess for Polgar and the Gorloks, named for the private school’s mascot.

All six of the contest players including two alternates are grandmasters, or top players in chess. We hope it’s the first of many national titles,said Polgar, 44, who wore blue high heels, black slacks and coat with a white T-shirt 2013 nationwide Champions.

The players come from all over the world. They are Georg German Precision Meier, Wesley Asian Tiger So, of the Philippines, Ray Fearless Attacker Robson, of Florida, Fidel Casanova Corrales Jimenez, of Cuba, Anatoly Speedy Rocket Bykhovsky, of Israel, and Manuel Yucatan Conquistador Leon Hoyos, of Mexico.

Bykhovsky, who followed Polgar from Texas Tech, won the last match of the contest. The game lasted four hours. The subordinate is studying finance. He said he started playing chess young and became a grandmaster by 21.

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.