This is Ethan Moon’s report for the Pan American chess tournament that was held in Charlotte, North Carolina between January 1st and 5th. This tournament features the best collegiate players in North America. This year, he played for UofT Team B, on board 2.
January 1st: 12:00am
Fireworks boomed in the distance and I could hear people celebrating in the streets of downtown Toronto- despite the weather being freezing cold and wet. It officially was the start of a new year: 2025. As usual I had waited until the last possible minute to pack, frantically double checking to make sure I had not missed anything.
This Pan-Ams was not going to be like last years, and everything was poised for a more memorable and enjoyable experience.
First off, the travel time was going to be a short 2 hour flight, and a quick 15 minute uber ride to the hotel. In comparison to last year’s 5 hour flight with a layover and a 6 hour sketchy bus ride. Also, the playing venue was situated in the hotel we were staying at, in contrast to the 20 minute dangerous walk featured in Mcallen, Texas.
Secondly the team was considerably stronger than last year’s iteration. Team A (Left to right) consisted of IM Nicholas Vettese, WIM Yunshan Li, NM Fengxi Mao, and NM Henry Zhang.
Team B (Left to right) consisted of Nicholas Woltery, myself, WFM Cindy Qiao and Bingfei Wang.
There were also other extraneous upsides, such as name embroidered jackets, the location featuring an abundance of restaurants, etc. Perhaps the only downside of Charlotte was that temperatures were hovering around 0°C, and my hasty packing had consequences when I forgot to pack a winter coat. But this was only a minor issue.
I met my teammates at 3am in the airport and checking in was a breeze.
Farewell Toronto…
…and hellooo Charlotte!
Charlotte and Toronto both exist in the same time zone, but many of us pulled all-nighters as the flight was a red-eye. Sleeping on the plane was also close to impossible in economy class as we were packed in like sardines. After touching down, and a prompt uber ride, we arrived at the hotel, which featured a spacious room for two people.
Some of us decided to sleep, however, Cindy, Nicholas, Fengxi, and myself decided to roam and get accustomed to the location we found ourselves at. The hotel was situated next to a nice river, and there were many restaurants close by.
Fengxi and Nicholas finally had their long awaited race!
Some of the food featured at the restaurant “Famous Toastery”. There was a lot of debate on which dish was the best.
Later in the day, Cindy bravely ordered “The Reaper”, from Dave’s Hot Chicken. It was so spicy she needed to sign a waiver before receiving it!
Since some of the team members went home for the winter break, it meant that they would have to come to Charlotte on different flights. Finally late at night on Day 1, all the members congregated at an IHOP. After the meal most of us decided to hang out in Cindy’s room where. Shows were watched, chess was played, and even poker (with chess pieces as chips).
Left: The first complete group picture of the event! Right: Late night festivities continued until 2:30am!
Day 2:
The day started quite late as many of us slept in. For lunch, all of us went to Chick fil a, which would be a staple food for the rest of the trip.
When we got back from our excursion we waited for the elevators to return to our hotel rooms.
At to the ground floor there were some well-known faces in the chess scene. “This is a strong lobby,” Cindy whispered meekly.
Left: We saw reigning Women’s US Champion Carissa Yip! Right: GM Awonder Liang, the top player in the event was present
Upon exiting the elevator, we discovered that we shared the floor with Mizzou, the strongest team at the event, and we walked past GMs Aryan Tari, and Grigoriy Oparin. Overall, it is safe to say we were truly humbled in the span of about 2 minutes.
Left: GM Aryan Tari Right: GM Grigoriy Oparin
We went back to our rooms. And began prepping for the first round. An hour before the game, there was an opening ceremony, and most of our team went downstairs simply to take a quick gander at the food options.
A liberal amount of food offered before round 1
Round 1
We took our seats in the playing hall. Cindy and I were actually slightly late as we got trapped in an elevator and had to get pried out. Team A was playing down, against Stanford C, while we were playing up against UT Dallas C. This team fielded an all female roster, which was an incredibly strong lineup.
The clocks started and we were off! I was playing FM Gergana Peycheva. We were outmatched on all boards, however based on the color and rating difference I felt as if I was the weakest link. Bingfei made a comfortable draw against WIM Tarini Goyal, and Cindy also accidentally claimed a draw in a better position against WGM Anastasya Paramzina. It was around this time that I miscalculated due to time pressure, and made a grave positional error.
Left – FM Gergana Peycheva. Right – Here I played Be6 allowing white to go f4! Where white now has a serious advantage. The line that I saw which led to equality went c5 Bf2 Be6 with Nc6 with Nd5 to follow, but I simply rejected it as I believed Be6 was a slightly more accurate move order.
The game fell apart quickly after that mistake, as I did not put up the best resistance. Nikolai managed to hold despite being worse, making the final score a loss at 1.5-2.5. I did feel pretty frustrated as although I found some good moves, it seemed as if my King’s Indian had a lot to be desired. Meanwhile, UofT beat Stanford C 3.5-0.5, with Yunshan making a draw in her game.
The day ended with the team going to Taco Bell. Although the food was fine, Fengxi was served some very suspicious tasting chips, as confirmed by Bingfei.
Round 2
After waking up and feeling somewhat rested, I checked the pairings.
UofT A – Texas Tech University A
UofT B – Stanford B
This trip will have to do a lot with UofT getting paired up with Stanford, and I would eventually get to know some of their players. Last year, UofT A was paired up with Stanford A where we would lose 1.5-2.5 with me drawing their board 4 and Fengxi on board 3 beating NM Sina Mohammadi from a losing position. Since then Stanford has had a further influx of talent, making their university stronger than some scholarship schools! In total between both UofT teams and the 4 Stanford teams, we would be matched up 5 times in total. That didn’t mean that Sina (who I was matched against) was to be taken lightly, as he had drawn a grandmaster the round prior.
I decided to prepare some interesting lines for my opponent and found an extremely tricky line. After reviewing it with Fengxi I went downstairs and the game began.
Luckily, he played right into my preparation, which although objectively dubious it requires extreme precision and bravery to claim an advantage.
Left: National Master Sina Mohammadi Right: In this position, despite being down a pawn black has a massive objective edge. However, at some point they must take the pawn on h2, allowing Rh1 and g5 possibilities.
My opponent, after being down nearly 45 minutes on the clock, deviated early with Ne5?! (shown left), and now completely out of preparation with a new position I sat down and I didn’t even know where to begin calculating.
Right: This position is extremely rich and complex, one of the speculative lines that I calculated was O-O-O Bxg4, Nce2 Bxe2, Nf5! Nd3+, Qxd3! Bxd3, Rxg7+ Kh8, Bxd3 but I realized it was refuted by Ba3!
After 40 minutes of calculation I finally decided to queenside castle. This was followed by a flurry of mistakes from both sides, but eventually I had a close to winning endgame. The dagger was when I calculated the winning continuation that finally rendered clarity to the position.
Here, I played Kc2!(shown left) Nxc3, Kxc3 and after Rd4 I went b4!, b6 bxc5 bxc5 Re1 Rh4, and Re5 simultaneously collecting the c pawn and defending the pawn on g5 (shown right).
I won my game, Bingfei held his position (despite blundering an exchange early on!), Cindy drew (she really needs to work on not 3-folding when she is better) and Nikolai lost. Therefore we drew Stanford B 2-2.
Round 3
After wondering what to play as black the next round I ran into another Stanford student while waiting for the elevator, the reigning US women’s champion IM Carissa Yip. After a brief exchange she did convince me that playing the King’s Indian was a good choice, and recommended that it should be employed next round. With that I confidently sat at my board against NM Armin Baradaran and began playing.
Left: National Master Amir Baradaran Right: By playing the King’s Indian I achieved a dead lost position in only 20 moves! Obviously Bxc5 looks trivial, however up until this point taking the knight for the “good” bishop was an inferior trade, so my opponent simply castled kingside instead, to keep with the theme. After gxh5 i realized I was back in the game.
This was a tough round. I was frequently checking on how my peers were doing, and as the phases of the game progressed they each ran into trouble .
Left– In the opening Bingfei was in big trouble after falling for trap with e4! After Bxe4, Qa4+ wins a piece. Middle – In the middlegame Nikolai’s position is equal against FM Rochelle Wu. However, he was under severe time pressure playing off increment while his opponent enjoyed a 20 minute time advantage. Right – In the endgame Cindy suffered a heartbreak as she was better in this position, but blundered with Qf6+?? forcing the king to a5 and leading to an unstoppable mate.
I found myself being the last board and was getting completely pressed in the position. Both of us were under severe time pressure and to my surprise my opponent decided to trade the knights and queens on g5, completely turning the tables in my favor.
Left: In this position my opponent blundered with Bg5?? which forces pieces pieces off the board. Unfortunately, after Bxg5 Qxg5 Qxg5 Rxg5 I played Ra8 netting the a-pawn. Right: Here I should have played Bh5 and collected the pawn on f3, however I was worried about the counterplay that could be generated after Bf5 and Rxh7, so I repeated with seconds on the clock.
After nearly 8 hours of chess, fatigue had finally caught up to me. The final score was 0.5-3.5
Blitz Tournament
After this round, some of the roster decided to play in the blitz tournament, which was a 6-round swiss. Scholarship schools avoid these side events, but the competition is still quite fierce.
The boys ready up for the blitz tournament.
I really do love the atmosphere in this side event, where there is a more casual nature. I got to know many people through the short chats that I had before the games, and it was overall a refreshing break from the competitive nature of the main tournament.
The final scores for all the participating UofT players were as follows.
After 6 Rounds:
Nicholas Vettesse – 4.5
Fengxi Mao – 4.0
Ethan Moon – 3.5
Nicholay Woltery – 3.0
Cindy Qiao – 2.5
Bingfei Wang 1.0
Round 4
UofT A – Yale
UofT B – Stanford C
Another Stanford match for UofT B. Luckily, this was going to be the smoothest out of all our matches. My opponent (~2000 USCF) decided to play a King’s Indian setup against my English, and my spatial advantage just led to a gradual improvement and timely explosion of the position. Cindy drew in a very uneventful manner, Bingfei won without spending any time on his clock, and Nicolai really was enjoying his position with two pieces for the rook.
Left: USCF Expert Ngoc Minh Tri Nguyen Right: Here my opponent played Qe7? Which misplaces the queen, making the main pawn exchange on d4 much more difficult to execute. He was forced to shuffle around while I improved my pieces to their optimal squares.
Meanwhile the A-Team also had great success. They were up against Yale, one of the strongest non-scholarship schools. Nicholas held comfortably, Fengxi played arguably the game of his life, and Henry had a really wild game. The match ended in a draw 2-2.
Left: This tournament it felt like Nicholas couldn’t lose! Apparently with white he just can force draws out of thin air! Middle: Fengxi played the game of his life, outplaying his opponent IM Maximillian Lu to obtain the bishop pair, and then performing a masterclass harnessing the two bishops in the endgame. Right: Henry’s position was absolute chaos. Despite this, he navigated the waters quite well, until time pressure made it impossible to find the win. The game was drawn by perpetual check.
Round 5
UofT A – University of Missouri – Mizzou (A)
UofT B – University of California San Diego
This round was really rough from the UofT B perspective. Despite Bingfei winning and Nicolay forcing a draw (in a really clever way). Me and Cindy got absolutely crushed in our games. Up until this point I was pleased with my play, and despite getting clearly outplayed this game I really felt that I could bring more to the table.
Left: National Master Ganesh Kumarappan Right: the final chance that I had (as white) to keep the game going, I could have sacrificed the exchange with g4, Bxe4 and Nxe4, which would have given me reasonable compensation. Instead I took on f4 and resigned after Bxe4.
For Team A, they knew from the start it was going to be an uphill battle. Mizzou was the top team, featuring world class talent, with players Grigory Oparin and Aryan Tari. The round before, their team had drew SLU A, leading them to UofT A. This round they subbed out Oparin for Isik Can, a GM-Elect. However, this “inferior lineup” would still prove to be absolute overkill. The match ended 3.5-0.5 with again Vettese drawing on board 1.
IM Nicholas Vettese did not lose a single game this tournament which was incredibly impressive as half the opponents he faced were strong GMs.
Round 6
UofT A – Washington University in St. Louis (A)
UofT B – Stanford University (D)
In the final round both teams were paired down, and won their matches easily. This was also the final match of the “UofT – Stanford Saga” where we played the last remaining iteration. Although the results were not surprising, there was quite a bit of drama in the UofT – Stanford D match.
Left: Cindy mentioned that she felt relieved before the match as her opponent was not FIDE rated, but she probably wished he was as she had forced mate after 12 moves. Middle: Here I learned a valuable lesson. I usually pick up captured pieces to twirl in my hands, here I accidently picked up the rook on c8 and my opponent rightly pointed out I had to move it. Such a shame too as I just calculated Nb5+ Kb1 Na3+ Kc1 and Rxc2 which would lead to his resignation. I eventually won but it did get very complicated after I was forced to play Rc6. Right: Bingfei was nearly about to win, but fell for the trap Qxe5 and Rf8+ and his queen was lost. Despite this catastrophic blunder, the game ended in a draw.
Post-Tournament
Once the tournament ended, we had some free time to ourselves. I used this time to talk with old friends such as GM Shawn-Rodrigue Lemieux and FM Dachey Lin, but also new friends such as FM Davis Zong (who was trapped in the elevator with me and Cindy prior to round 1). The closing ceremony went as predicted with UofT A winning the top international team edging out the only other international team UofT B. Surprisingly, my team won the award of Top Division III team, an award which was unexpected but we gladly accepted.
The UofT 2025 Panam Roster with Team A (Background) and Team B (Foreground).
The tournament ended with a hotpot-Korean BBQ dinner. A great meal to cap off an amazing trip!
Before the day was over, we had travelled to the airport, and flew back to Toronto. Just like that the trip had concluded.
Reflection
First off, sorry for the delay in this article. School really got in the way, and I really wanted this article to be written as well as possible. It is very likely this will be my last Panams and I wanted this to be something that I can look back proudly on in the future.
I would like to thank the club for giving the opportunity to allow us to field 2 teams for this tournament. UofT is the only international university at these events, simply because other schools do not have the resources it takes to send players across the continent. Specifically I would like to thank: Victor Zheng, Deepanshi Matai, Mark Li, Ahmed Khalf, Kaiy Cao and Samuel Zhang. I also extend my appreciation to Alex Ferreira and Tanner McNamara.
When I first walked into the club as a freshman in 2017, I was young, cocky, and always filled with energy and excitement. As I enter my 4th year in my pharmacy program I realized I have mellowed out a lot. However, my love for the game has only increased with time, and I will always be around the chess scene, even when I leave UofT.
Thank you for reading my article!
Hart House Chess Club 