Thursday, January 2, 2014

Pestaño: World youth championship

Chessmoso
Thursday, January 2, 2014

THE 2013 World Youth Chess Championships were held last Dec. 17-29 in Al Ain, United Arab Emirates. Aside from the world championship, this was the biggest and most important tournament in the Fide calendar.
A total of 1,773 players from 121 countries competed. Including the parents, guardians, coaches and media, the total participants exceeded 3,000 and that strained the logistics of the organizers.
India and China won three gold medals each, but the Indian players also bagged two silver and three bronze medals. We sent 12 of our best players in all categories but we did not win a single medal and some withdrew before the end of the tournament.
Other gold medal winners were Russia, United States, Canada, Armenia, Iran and Greece.
The winners are: U18 (boys)- IM Idani Pouya (2483) 8.5, GM Anton Guijarro David (2558) 8.0 and GM VaibhavSuri (2544) 8.0. In the U18 girls, the winners are - WFM Tomnikova Lidia (2167), 8.5, WGM Ziaziulkina Nastassia (2354) 8.5 and WIM Ibrahimova Sabina (2205) 8.5. Frayna Janelle Mae of the Philippines withdrew from the competition.
In the under 16 category the winners are IM Karthikeyan Murali (2431), 9.0, FM Girish A. Koushik (2413) 9.0 and FM Alekseenko Kirill (2445) 8.0 in the boys division and Gu Tianlu (2128), 9.0, WIM Nicolas Zapata Irene (2237) 8.5 and WGM Khademalsharieh Sarasadat (2298) 8.5 in the girls side. The Philippines bet Shania Mae Mendoza was at No. 23 with seven points.
In the under 14 category Li Di of China (2091) topped the boys side with 9.5 points, while Tsolakidou Stavroula (2132) of Greece won the girls title with 9.0 points.
Samantila Daryl Unix of the Philippines withdraw from the girsl competition.
In the Under 21 division, Hakobyan Aram (2015) won the boys title with 9.5, while Shengxin Zhao (1753) won the girls crown with 9.5.
In the under 10 category, FM Liang Awonder (2246) of the US won the boys crown with 10 points and WCM Salonika Saina (1642) of India got the girls title with 9.0. Again, the Philippines bet Mary Joy Tan withdrew from the event.
In the under 8 category, FM Praggnanandhaa (1852) got the boys title with 11.0, while the Philippines Michael Concio finished at No. 49 with 6.5 points. WCM Zhu Harmony got the girls title with 9.0, while Filipina Jerlyn Mae San Diego was at No. 46 with 6 points.
World No. 30 Wesley So Wesley (2719) will be playing in the A group of the 76th edition of the Tata Steel Chess Tournament, which will take place from Jan. 10 to 26, in Wijkaan Zee, The Netherlands. This is his biggest tournament ever and his greatest test.
This is the most prestigious tournament in professional chess and an invitation to the A group is like an invitation to the White House.
The other players rated higher than Wesley are Armenian Levon Aronian (2803) , rated second in the world, American Hikaru Nakamura (2786, 4th), Italian Fabiano Caruana (2782, 7th), Israeli Boris Gelfand (2777, 8th), Russian Sergey Kariakin (2756, 12th), Cuban Leinier Dominguez (2754, 14th), German Arkadi Naiditsch (2737, 18th) and Dutch Anish Giri (2734, 20th).
Also in the tournament are Indian PentalaHarikrishna (2708, 42nd), Hungarian Richard Rapport (2687, 58th), and Dutch Loek Van Wely (2678, 69th).
The average rating of the players is 2743, a category 20 tournament.

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