Sunday Seattle tournament will be big

At least 7 out of town players are coming to the Jin Chen Memorial Tournament in Seattle. “Registration is on the morning of the tournament, Sunday, Jan. 5 at 10:00 a.m., so we don’t know about everybody who is coming,” reports manager Brian Allen. “But we expect the open section to be very competitive.” Xingshuo Liu, 7d and Ran Yan, 6d are traveling to the games for a second year. A young Chinese pro who is now a local college student is also probably coming. He is Ximeng Yu (Simon), 1P. “We also have 5 amateur dan level players who are visiting from China. Their instructor, Xiaomin Yao, 4P, will provide game analysis. Ms. Yao was a colleague of Guo Juan and Yilun Yang when they lived in China and this is her first trip to the United States.” Photo: Xiaomin Yao (far left) and Ran Yan (far right) at the 2012 Jin Chen Tournament. Report/photo by Brian Allen