7-year old Arthur Xu was one of 30 American juniors to participate in the Third Annual ChessKid National Invitational completed June 8. Arthur received his invitation before his most recent birthday and therefore competed in the 6-and-under section where he finished 2.5/5, raising his USCF rating 36 points.

Even though the event was held entirely online, the USCF sanctioned the round robin as if it were an over the board tournament. Juniors competed in five sections over three days.

In the final round, Arthur drew the section's runner up, Lucas Foerster-Yialamas of New York, despite being outrated by 300 points. 

Earlier in the tournament, Illinois' lone representative was up a bishop versus two pawns on the eventual section winner, Vishnu Vanapalli of North Carolina, but fell in the end game.

Arthur's mom Lily is confident that Arthur will learn from his games and hopes he'll have an opportunity to view the insightful analysis videos provided by ChessKid's resident experts.

Lily credits ChessKid for giving her son a fun introduction to chess and says he really enjoyed doing the tactical puzzles. Arthur has since moved on from ChessKid to Chess.com but there can be no doubt it contributed to Arthur's solid chess foundation.

Even though he did not win his section, playing against really tough competition was the primary reason Arthur wanted to play in the tournament.

In addition to studying chess 7-10 hours a week, Arthur also enjoys playing soccer, solving math problems, reading books and playing piano. 

His favorite chess book right now is Chess Evolution, the Fundamentals, which is Book 7 of the excellent 9-part Artur Yusupov series (I can vouch for the quality of that entire series).

As do a lot of us, Arthur admires Magnus Carlsen as one of chess heroes, and has set a goal of qualifying for a World Youth competition.

Arthur is Illinois' second-rated player in the 7-and-under age group and is within the top 40 nationwide as of the May 2014 ratings. Since he was ranked 33rd on the March 2014 lists (when he was still a 6-year old) Arthur should qualify for the 2015 Warren Junior Scholars program.

Keep it up, Arthur!

Crosstables for the ChessKid event can be viewed here.