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The 2025 US Masters is a 9 round swiss tournament in Charlotte, North Carolina. The field has over 40 GMs, including Awonder Liang, Sam Sevian, Jeffery Xiong, Alexander Donchenko and many other strong players. The Canadian contingent is lead by GMs Shawn Rodrique-Lemieux and Razvan Preotu and contains many IMs and FMs that will be hoping to achieve a norm or improve their ratings. This tournament begins on November 26.
Prior to the US Masters, there are a number of GM and IM round robins that include Canadians seeking norms. Sai Krishna is playing in the GM-A event, Ryan Yang and Vincent Latorre are playing in GM-B, and Rohan Talukdar and Jonathan Wu are playing in IM-C. These round robin tournament start today.
It was a decent start in the first round of the round robin tournaments, with no losses for the Canadians. Vincent Latorre and Jonathan Wu were victorious, while Ryan Yang and Sai Krishna came away with draws. Rohan Talukdar also won in round one, but he is an IM playing in an IM norm section, so he doesn't have an opportunity for a norm in this tournament. Round 2 is later tonight.
In round 2, Jonathan Wu was the sole winner from the Canadians, with the rest walking away with draws. Of the draws, Vincente Latorre's was the most impressive, being against a GM rated 2550.
Round 3 was a rough one with Sai Krishna drawing against a lower rating opponent and the rest of the Canadian norm seekers losing their games.
Round 4 was much better with Sai Krishna and Vincent Latorre winning their games.
Overall, after 4 rounds, Vincent Latorre was at 2.5 out of 4. Even after losing in round 5, he is still in decent shape for an IM norm, because he has now played the 2 strongest GMs. Sai Krishna is undefeated after 4 rounds, but 3 of those games ended in draws, so he will need to start winning if he wants to get a GM norm. Jonathan Wu started with 3 wins, but has lost his last 2 games. Rohan Talukda is at an undefeated 3.5 / 5, but he isn't competing for a norm.
Yesterday was an okay day for the Canadians. Rohan Talukdar had a win and a draw and continues his unbeaten streak. Sai Krishna and Vincent Latorre won one and lost one, while Ryan Yang and Jonathan Wu had two draws. The last round is later today and there are no norm chances possible for the Canadians in this tournament. The main event starts tomorrow and most of these players will be joining a number of other Canadians who will be looking to achieve a norm in the US Masters.
Shawn had a couple of chances to win his game in a complicated middle game, where both kings were exposed, but he had to settle for a perpetual check and a draw.
In addition to Razvan winning, IMs Anthony Atanasov and Sai Krishna were also victorious.
Edit: Shawn didn't draw by perpetual check. He had repeated the position twice and was down the exchange, so I switched to watching a different game, expecting a draw. When I came back a little bit later, the game was a draw and I assumed it was by the position being repeated 3 times, but Shawn actually had decided to play on against a lower rated player. The opponent made a mistake, but it wasn't capitalized on and ended up being drawn.
Last edited by Michael; Thursday, 27th November, 2025, 05:09 PM.
I feel bad for Shawn. The evaluations showed +3 and rightly so. A moments distraction (maybe) or an automatic move (Rxb7) and the advantage gone. With a few seconds extra thought he would have found Qe3 easy.
In the Razvan game all eyes on the knight. Razvan has turned into an endgame virtuoso. But even as a young lad he was good in the endgame.
Round 3 was a good one for the Canadians. Razvan remains with a perfect score and I expect he will be paired against Jeffery Xiong in round 4. Xiong is rated 2649, so it will be a good test for Razvan, if he does get that pairing. Shawn is also undefeated with 2.5 points after 3 rounds and is climbing up the leaderboard after a first round draw. Sai Krishna is also at 2.5 points after 3 rounds. Unfortunately, Sai has played 3 lower rated players, so he will need some favourable pairings and some great results to be eligible for a GM norm. Rohan Talukdar abd Jonathan Wu are at 1.5 points after 3 rounds.
The Canadian IMs came through in round 4, with Sai Krishna and Anthony Atanasov both coming through with wins. IM Rohan Talukdar is still playing as I type this. Not only do the IMs get a point for the win, but they should also get a higher rated opponent in the next round, which will help their norm chances. Shawn settled for a quick draw, so he will be fresh for the afternoon game. Jonathan Wu was also victorious in round 4 to get to 2.5 / 4
Edit: Rohan also won his game, so the IMs went 3 / 3 in round 4.
Round 5 was a time for the Canadian GMs to step forward and Shawn and Razvan won their games to get to 4 points after 5 rounds. IMs Krishna and Atanasov drew against GMs. Sai Krishna joins Shawn and Razvan at 4 points and should get a good pairing in round 6. Anthony Atanasov drew against a GM rated 2591 and is at 3.5 points and is staying in contention.
Shawn and Razvan both won in round 6 to get to 5 points and a tie for second place. Rohan also won and now has 4 points. Sai Krishna and Jonathan Wu had tough pairings and were beaten by GMs. Chess.com and the Charlotte Chess Club pairings show Sai winning the game, but he was in a lost position, so I assume the result will be changed. If the results stays and Sai did win, that would be a great result. Three rounds remaining, so things are getting down to crunch time.
Edit to add that Anthony Atanasov also won in round 6 and is now at 4.5 points.
Last edited by Michael; Saturday, 29th November, 2025, 04:23 PM.
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