Asian Youth Championships – a clean sweep by India

Asian Youth Chess Championships – a clean sweep by India

By R. Anantharam, Chief Arbiter – with photos by Reza Mahdipour

The congregation of about 240 children from various countries and more than equal number of parents and coaches is not a common phenomenon in the field of chess. The 2009 edition of the Asian Youth Chess Championships witnessed the vibrant and energetic activities of such children on and off the board for a period of about one week in the first week of August in New Delhi, the capital of India. Delhi Chess Association organized the tournament in style mixing the chess game judiciously with traditional bangra dances and enchanting magic show for the children.

Bhaṅgṛā is a form of music and dance that originated in the Punjab region of India and Pakistan

You can watch a 3½ minute video of Bhaṅgṛā here. If you want to lean how to do
the Panjabi dance yourself here's a video tutorial with a course in seven days

The opening ceremony held quite appropriately in the open

Female dancers balance steel water jugs on their heads

A lot of filming and photography by the visitors

A prominent visitor: 2007 Indian Women's Champion IM Tania Sachdev (middle),
who has herself won the World and Asian junior titles and is currently rated 2410

For some of the participants the opening festivities were just too much

The strongest contingent in this continental championship, India, did not face much resistance in many categories and in the absence of China it grabbed gold medals in seven categories. It mustered 23 out of 36 medals in total, two more than what it bagged last year in Tehran, Iran.

The only GM of the tournament, Salem A.R. Saleh of UAE, won the prestigious under 18 title ahead of P. Shyam Nikil of India because of a better tiebreak score.

Guliskhan Nakhbayeva of Kazhakstan won the under 18 girls category convincingly, distancing the nearest rival Pon N Krithika of India by a full point. K. Priyadarshan of India annexed the under 16 title with 6.5 points from 9 rounds, followed by Nguyen Van Hai of Vietnam with 6 points. In the respective group for girls, Hoang Thi Nhu Y of Vietnam secured the gold for her country.

The swimming pool, a favourite place to be after the games are over

Iranian boys enjoying themselves in the water

Two Indians Shiven Khosla and J. Saranya dis their country proud by winning the gold medals in the under 14 group for boys and girls respectively. Diptayan Ghosh, the champion in under 10 boys last year added one more gold to his collection by winning the under 12 category this year. Srija Seshadri and GK Monnisha tied for the first place in all their Buchholz scores from Cut 1 to Cut 8 and also in the median score prompting the organizers to award two gold medals and no silver in the girls’ section.

What a way to wind down after a long and stressful game

While Shahin Lorparizangeneh of Iran brought cheers to the Iran team by picking up the lone gold for their country in the under 10 category, Thao Pham Thanh Phuong of Vietnam contributed one more gold medal, making her country as the second best in the individual medal tally. India made a clean sweep in the under 8 category by winning all the six medals at stake. Kushi Dharewa and Mitrabha Guha spearheaded the medal list with gold medals in the girls and boys’ sections respectively.

Medalists

Some information of Asian Youth Chess Championship

• 14 countries participated: IND, IRI, VIE, UZB, KAZ, KGZ, MGL, MAS, INA, UAE, TRK, AFG, SRI, and BHU (Bhutan), with a totla of 240 player in the Championships
• Players had to be present at the boards 45 minutes after the start (no zero minutes zero tolerance rule)
• No draw agreement were allowed before 30 moves
• Boys U18 and U16 gold medalists achieved IM norms and got FM titles
• Girls U18 and U16 gold medalists achieved WIM norms and got WFM titles
• All silver and bronze medalists achieved CM/WCM title, or if they tied for the first place, got FM/WFM norms

Links

• Official web site
• All results in all categories