Link to official website.
This is really great news for Wisconsin chess fans and people who know the Liang family and the chessplaying siblings. This is great news for U.S. scholastic chess too. It's not too often an American chessplayer wins a gold medal at a world competition!
The World Youth Chess Championships took place November 17 - 27, 2011 in Caldas Novas, GO, Brazil.
Awonder played in the U-8 Open Section - here are the top 4 finishers, all completed the tournament with 7.5/9:
Classificação final após 9 rondas
| Rk. | Nome | FED | EloI | Pts. | Des 1 | Des 2 | n | w | we | w-we | K | rtg+/- | ||
| 1 | Liang Awonder | USA | 1872 | 7.5 | 43.0 | 0.0 | 3 | 2 | 1.85 | 0.15 | 15 | 2.3 | ||
| 2 | Ram Aravind L N | IND | 1869 | 7.5 | 38.0 | 0.0 | 2 | 2 | 0.90 | 1.10 | 15 | 16.5 | ||
| 3 | Yu Kaifeng | CHN | 0 | 7.5 | 36.0 | 0.0 | 5 | 3.5 | ||||||
| 4 | Thilakaratne G M H | SRI | 1528 | 7.5 | 34.0 | 0.0 | 1 | 1 | 0.08 | 0.92 | 30 | 27.6 |
While it wasn't a necessarily a shock to fans of the young chessplayers who represented the USA in this year's World Championships, it may have come as something of a shock to the rest of the world not only that the Americans sent a large contingent of players, but that so many of them placed very well!
Another young American player, Li Rufeng, played in the U-10 Open won a Silver Medal - and honorable mention to Xie Tianming of the USA for finishing in the top 10 in this Group:
Classificação final após 9 rondas
| Rk. | Nome | FED | EloI | Pts. | Des 1 | Des 2 | n | w | we | w-we | K | rtg+/- | ||
| 1 | Zhu Yi | CHN | 0 | 7.5 | 42.0 | 0.0 | 7 | 6 | ||||||
| 2 | Li Ruifeng | USA | 1919 | 7.0 | 39.5 | 0.0 | 7 | 6 | 4.22 | 1.78 | 15 | 26.7 | ||
| 3 | Rathanvel V S | IND | 1906 | 7.0 | 38.5 | 0.0 | 7 | 6 | 4.33 | 1.67 | 15 | 25.0 | ||
| 4 | Aleksandrov Zakhar | RUS | 2116 | 7.0 | 38.0 | 0.0 | 7 | 5.5 | 5.96 | -0.46 | 30 | -13.8 | ||
| 5 | Rakesh Kumar Jena | IND | 1865 | 7.0 | 37.0 | 0.0 | 7 | 5 | 4.31 | 0.69 | 15 | 10.4 | ||
| 6 | FM | Tabatabaei M Amin | IRI | 2028 | 7.0 | 36.5 | 0.0 | 6 | 4.5 | 4.65 | -0.15 | 15 | -2.3 | |
| 7 | Poghosyan Tigran | GER | 1770 | 7.0 | 34.0 | 0.0 | 4 | 2 | 1.79 | 0.21 | 15 | 3.2 | ||
| 8 | Xie Tianming | USA | 0 | 7.0 | 33.5 | 0.0 | 6 | 4.5 |
The top finishers in the U-12 Open:
Classificação final após 9 rondas
| Rk. | Nome | FED | EloI | Pts. | Des 1 | Des 2 | n | w | we | w-we | K | rtg+/- | ||
| 1 | Karthikeyan Murali | IND | 2154 | 7.5 | 39.5 | 0.0 | 9 | 7.5 | 5.97 | 1.53 | 15 | 23.0 | ||
| 2 | FM | Gledura Benjamin | HUN | 2230 | 7.5 | 39.0 | 0.0 | 8 | 6.5 | 6.26 | 0.24 | 15 | 3.6 | |
| 3 | Song Michael | CAN | 2032 | 7.0 | 37.0 | 0.0 | 9 | 7 | 5.11 | 1.89 | 15 | 28.4 | ||
| 4 | FM | Lorparizangeneh Shahin | IRI | 2175 | 7.0 | 37.0 | 0.0 | 9 | 7 | 7.02 | -0.02 | 15 | -0.3 | |
| 5 | FM | Xiong Jeffrey | USA | 2056 | 7.0 | 36.0 | 0.0 | 9 | 7 | 5.76 | 1.24 | 15 | 18.6 | |
| 6 | Haria Ravi | ENG | 2045 | 7.0 | 35.5 | 0.0 | 9 | 7 | 5.68 | 1.32 | 15 | 19.8 | ||
| 7 | Tari Aryan | NOR | 2227 | 7.0 | 35.0 | 0.0 | 7 | 5 | 5.61 | -0.61 | 15 | -9.1 |
A big shout-out to our neighbors to the north, Yay Canada! Nice going with that Bronze Medal won by Michael Song. Honorable mention to USA's Jeffrey Xiong, who finished in 5th place overall with 7.0/9.
This isn't meant to be a comprehensive report of the World Youth Chess Championship. I do express my opinion that I find the trend of our younger players showing excellent results as extremely promising for the future of American chess, provided we can get and maintain the necessary funding for training our young promising players, whether male or female. Other countries actively support their chessplayers with government funding, the USA does not (as far as I'm aware). There are many promising young players, and not enough money to go around to provide all of them with the trainers and coaching they need, let alone financial assistance to travel to and from tournaments where they can gain experience against international players and perhaps earn coveted norms.
I also noted that WGM Deysi Cori of Peru played in the U-18 Open event and finished in 10th place overall - well done! I'm sure she was shooting for better, though.
| 10 | WGM | Cori T. Deysi | PER | 2414 | 6.0 | 32.5 | 0.0 | 9 | 6 | 5.62 | 0.38 | 10 | 3.8 |
Her brother, GM Jorge Cori, won the gold medal in the U-16 Open!
| 1 | GM | Cori Jorge | PER | 2482 | 7.5 | 35.5 | 0.0 | 9 | 7.5 | 7.11 | 0.39 | 10 | 3.9 |
Gold total rate fluctates like Gold today rate tides. Gold price stability not in sighst.
ReplyDeleteFor the first time in my life I can now claim to have played a World Champion. Although Awonder brutally crushed me in the one game I've played him.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to get a chance to play him again soon before he becomes untouchably good.
Hola Chris. Thanks so much for your posts keeping me in touch with what was happening with Awonder during the Championship. I was out of town during most of it and not keeping very good track of what was going on :)
ReplyDeleteIf you are anywhere near Wisconsin, perhaps Awonder will be playing in the April, 2012 version of the Hales Corners Chess Challenge that is held at a hotel near our airport on South Howell Avenue. How awesome will THAT be! Wow! The Southwest Chess Club is very good about posting pre-registered players before the event. Too tired to look up their link - you can find it on the left-hand side of the blog under "Links of Interest."