Lu Shanglei, Goryachkina win World Juniors 2014

Lu Shanglei and Aleksandra Goryachkina win World Juniors 2014

By Sagar Shah

With a victory in the twelfth round, Aleksandra Goryachkina created a record. She became the second girl after Ketino Kachiani to win the World Junior in consecutive years, after the latter won it in 1989 and 1990. Before the final round she was 10.5/12, which was one and a half point clear of the entire field. She quickly made a draw in her last game and became the World Junior Girls champion with a terrific score of 11.0/13. While the Girls section was completely dominated by the 16-year-old Russian, the open section was filled with tension, drama and excitement. Let's transport ourselves to the ballroom of the Grand Hyatt, Pune to witness the action!

Handshakes all around: let the final round begin!

The top board game was between Wei Yi and Jan-Krzysztof Duda. Both were on nine points.

A Google search on Jan Krzysztof Duda, revealed this:

So the two youngest grandmasters of our era (2013-2014) faced each other on the first board of the final round of the World Junior Chess Championship! It couldn't have been more appropriate.

The game was completely crazy. Wei Yi began by playing the 4.Ng5 against the Two Knights Defence. It seemed as if it would all end in a few moves because of the unimaginable complications.

It's not every day that you see such a complex position in an all-important game!

But as is true with all messy games in chess, it petered out to equality. Wei Yi tried his level best to win in that equal endgame. But it was not to be. The game ended in a draw and both the players finished on 9.5/13, and proved that they really are the most talented youngsters in the world by playing such an insanely complicated game.

The moment when the players agreed to a draw

Vladimir Fedoseev with the black pieces played the fashionable modern line in the Bogo Indian. He equalised after the opening but slowly started to go wrong. At some point Kamil held quite a tangible advantage. But a few inaccuracies by the white player meant that Fedoseev could hold on to a draw and move to 9.5/13.

The second board battle between GM Kamil Dragun (8.5) and GM Vladimir Fedoseev (9.0)

Lu Shanglei is a fighter, and you know it when he went for the Dutch Defense against Indjic's 1.d4 in the final round. White had a pretty safe position after the opening, but it required only one error by Indjic to hand over the initiative to Lu Shanglei. The Chinese youngster made no mistake after that. With a flurry of power packed moves he finished off his opponent in style – a perfect way to crown his journey in the World Juniors.

All eyes on the third board encounter between Alexander Indjic (8.5) and Lu Shanglei (9.0)

With this win, Lu Shanglei moved to 10.0/13. The top two boards later drew and no one could reach him! Thus Lu Shanglei was crowned the 53rd World Junior Champion!

Lu Shanglei is surely the deserving winner. He was unbeaten with seven wins and six draws. He played nine GMs in the events, and four of them were above 2600. His rating performance was a massive 2726, and he gained 33 Elo points from the event! A fantastic show by the youngster.

Disasppointed at not winning the gold: Wei Yi after his draw in the last round

Wei Yi played excellently in the entire tournament and was the sole leader after the eleventh round. But a loss to Fedoseev in the 12th was the turning point, and a silver is what Wei Yi had to settle for.

Aleksandra Goryachkina (left) made a draw in the final round with Anna Iwanow in the
final round to finish with 11.0/13 and win the gold medal by a mind boggling 1.5 margin

Blindfold chess? Back to back World Junior championships to her name is no mean achievement!

Sarasadat Khademalsharieh (above left) won a fine game against Srija Seshadri to end with 9.5/13 and a silver medal. We remind our readers that ChessBase drew attention to this young lady five years ago:

In 2009 Sarasadat became the U-12 Asian Champion at the age of eleven!

Ann Chumpitaz (left) drew with Sarvinoz Kurbonoeva and won the bronze medal with 9.5/13.
Chumpitaz (2201) gained 65 Elo from the tournament, which is extremely impressive.

Closing ceremony

The closing ceremony of the 53rd World Junior Chess Championships were held in the ballroom of the Grand Hyatt at 7 p.m. on 19th October 2014.

Pratibha Patil was the chief guest at the closing ceremony. She was the President
of India from 2007 to 2012 and also the first woman in the country to hold that post.

Dignitaries on the dais (from left to right): Vice chairman of the organizing committee Siddharth Mayur, FIDE Vide President D.V. Sundar, chairman of the organizing committee Aniruddha Deshpande, AICF President Venketrama Raja, ex-President of India Pratibha Patil, MCA President Ashok Jain, CEO of AICF Bharat Singh Chauhan, AICF secretary V. Hariharan, AICF Treasurer Ravindra Dongre.

Unique knight shaped trophies with colours of the Indian flag for the winners

The top three winners in the open section: Gold for Lu Shanglei (center),
Silver for Wei Yi (left) and Bronze for Vladimir Fedoseev (right)

For his efforts, Lu Shanglei received a cheque of Rupees 150,000
(approx $2500) and also a direct entry into the next FIDE World Cup

Sarasadat Khadelmalsharieh: Silver, Aleksandra Goryachkina: Gold, Ann Chumpitaz: Bronze

A cheque of Rupees 150,000 ($2500) and an entry into the next world cup for Aleksandra.
Second and third place in both the sections received Rupees 100,000 and 50,000 respectively.

The two winners, Aleksandra Goryachkina and Lu Shanglei with the ex-president of India

China's coach Li Wenliang has added another feather to his cap. After being the trainer of the Chinese team which won a gold medal at the Tromso Olympiad 2014, he now can now boast of being the trainer for both the gold and silver medallists at the World Juniors.

An elated Farrukh Amonatov, who was the coach of the Russian team, poses with his students!

The Poles, who performed excellently in this tournament:
sixth placed Kamil Dragun and fourth placed Jan-Krzysztof Duda

GM Vidit Gujarathi, who finished fifth, received the prize of the best Indian player

Padmini Rout with her proud parents. She missed the podium but finished fourth and
was the best Indian player in the girls section.

Shardul Gagare and Rucha Pujari won the prize of the best players from Maharashtra

The team of commentators were acknowledged for their wonderful live commentary for 13 days

Reporter Sagar Shah and photographer Amruta Mokal
with some random dude from China!

The World Junior Chess Championships 2014 have come to an end. It wasn't just a chess tournament, it was a cornucopia of young and bright minds from all over the globe. The players were youthful, stylish and colourful, which made this tournament a beautiful cultural festival celebrating the game of chess! With all eagerness we wait for the World Juniors 2015 to come soon!

All pictures by Amruta Mokal

Open: final top rankings (after thirteen rounds)

• Standings and full tiebreaks of all 137 players

Girls: final top rankings (after thirteen rounds)

• Standings and full tiebreaks of all 78 players

Rounds twelve and thirteen World Championship video reports by Vijay Kumar

Links Official tournament site All games in PGN; Open + Girls (courtesy TWIC) The games were broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.