Family photo of Arbiters in front of Aspendos Convention Center

After the 7th round of the World Youth Chess Championship which takes place in Kemer, Antalya between 11-23 November 2009, the upper places start to form slowly. The struggles of the top boards saw lots of decisive games after the free day on the 17th November 2009. The important results of the day are as follows:

In the U-8 general category the Iranian Aryan Gholami, left the board with the point from his struggle with the Australian Anton Smirnov who also had 5.5 points like him. In the standings of this group Aryan is followed by one of the surprises of the tournament Tanuj Vasudeva from USA with 6 points.

The Chinese Shi Yuan Zhao and the Kazakh Ramazan Zhalmakhanov also have 6 points and are located on the third and fourth places of the standings. In the U-8 girls category the top two boards ended up as draws which made Chinese Ruotong Chu to be the sole leader with 6.5 points. The group has 6 pointed American Samritha Palakollu and Vietnamese Vu Linh Chi Pham as the second and third players on the standings. 

 
 

In the U-10 general category since the top board game finished in a tie; the player of the black pieces on the second board after winning the game, Mikayel Mkrtchyan advanced to the top spot with 6.5 points. The second and third players of the group are Jinshi Bai and Jialun Xu. The girls category’s top spot is held firmly by Gunay Mammadzada from Azerbaijan who beat Irina Drogovoz of Russia and is the only player of the event with the perfect score. Tea Choladze and Irina Drogovoz are the second and third players of the group.

In the U-12 general category the players of 5.5 points Suri Vaibhav and Mikhail Al Antipov battled it out to determine Russian Antipov as the winner. The group leader Antipov has FM Tuan Minh Tran, Richard Wang and Jarod M Pamatmat as followers with 6 points in this order. The girls category has two groups of players with the first group having 4 players with 6 points and the second group having 5 players with 5.5 points.

 

What happens now?

In the U-14 the Peruvian IM Jorge Cori beat his Australian  opponent Yi Yuan to reach 6.5 points and is the number one on the standings. Cori is followed by the Armenian Hovhannes Gabuzyan of 6 points and the 7 players with 5.5 points are competing on the top boards tomorrow for better placement on the standings table. In the girls category the Israeli WFM Marsel Efroimski gained another point to reach 6.5 points and the first place. Georgian Ana Kuchava is second with 6 points and Kazakh WCM Dinara Saduakassova is third with 5.5 points.

In the U-16 general category IM Gujrathi Vidit and IM S P Sethuraman shares the first and second places while the 5 players with 5.5 points follow them. The first seed of the girls category Peruvian WIM Deysi Cori continues to lead with 6.5 points and WIM Lisa Schut from Netherlands and WIM Meri Arabidze from Georgia pursues her for the top place. 
 

 

As comfortable as home

In the U-18 general category the first and second seeds of the group Spanish GM Lopez Ivan Salgado and Russian IM Maxim Matlakov after an interesting game shook hands and agreed a draw. With this result GM Salgado and IM Piorun shares the top two spots with 6 points each and IM Matlakov and IM Adhiban are located on the third and fourth places. In the girls category the first seed Anastasia Savina got her first draw against her comrade WGM Olga Girya to keep her leading position in the group. The local hero and the 2007 and 2008 European Champion WIM Kubra Ozturk won again and is seated on the second place. WGM Olga Girya, Ekaterini Pavlidou and WGM Sopiko Guramishvili follow them on the third, fourth and fifth places.

The coach of USA team GM John Fedorowicz analysing the games of his youngsters