23rd NA FIDE Invitational

While no chess femmes are playing in this Invitational, several young Americans are trying for GM and IM norms. There's some exciting stuff going on! IM Ray Robson (in 3rd place before R7) defeated IM Ben Finegold (in 2nd place before R7) to leapfrog into first place with 5.5/7. IM Mulyar (in 6th place with 4.0 before R7) defeated GM Amanov (in 4th place also with 4.0 before R7), to also have 5.0/7. After R6 leader GM Kacheishvili drew with IM Shankland. Kacheishvili and Finegold both now have 5.0/7 and Shankland has 4.5/7. Mitkov and Ippolito both won, putting them at 4.5/7. Izoria and Molner drew their game, to each move to 4.0/7. Still 2 more rounds to go - and, to quote the old cliche, anything can happen! I'm not familiar with norm requirements, so I'm not going to hazard a guess as to which players may still have chances to score GM or IM norms. Stay tuned!