This article originally appeared on stlpublicradio.org on July 2.
The Triple Crown of chess is complete, in more ways than one.
Just this past week, Grandmaster Kayden Troff, 16, snagged the U.S. Junior Closed Championship crown after nine rounds of fierce competition against the top players under 21 in the nation. Troff finished the event in style, winning his final four games to finish a point and a half ahead of the rest of the field.
The newly anointed grandmaster took home the $3,000 first-place prize but, more important, earned a ticket to compete in the 2015 U.S. Championship, which will be held in St. Louis next year.
In May, the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of St. Louis also crowned Grandmaster Gata Kamsky the U.S. Champion and Grandmaster Irina Krush the U.S. Women’s Champion.
The three major U.S. Chess Championships, the triple crown of U.S. Chess, represent the top invitational tournaments in the nation each year, and they’ve found what appears to be a permanent home in St. Louis since 2009 (the U.S. Junior Closed has been held here since 2010). All three will be held in St. Louis in 2015.
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