50th World Junior Chess Championship - After Round 8

The 50th edition of World Junior Chess Championship is on going in Chennai, India. 125 young male chess players from 49 countries including Malaysia are taking part. They will play 13 rounds of standard chess format. Lim Zhou Ren is the sole Malaysian player among them. They had played eight rounds until now.

So, who is leading? Surprisingly, he is not among the top three seeds who are rated at 2600+. Interestingly,  two of the top three seeds are not even in the top 20 ranking. Until the sixth round, an Italian IM named Rombaldoni, Axel scored the perfect 6 points including a win over Zhou Ren and the third seed. But two Armenian GMs had stopped his winning streak. The host country, India, is surely ecstatic when its FM player named Girish Koushik is leading at the moment with 7/8 points. He shares the top spot with GM Robert Hovhannisyan, the player who defeated Rombaldoni and has also 7/8 points.

Would it be a non GM who emerge as the champion? Five more rounds to go before the question will be answered.

The Top 20 ranking after Round 8

FM Girish - currently leading

IM Rombaldoni

Impressive World Juniors And Girls U20 Chess Championship That We Can Learn From

GiLoCatur is not sure whether most Malaysian chess juniors are following the recently concluded World Junior and Girls U-20 Chess Championship that was held in a village named Chotowa in Poland. The championship attracts GiLoCatur for several reasons where we the Malaysian chess community can learn from it.

1. The championship website is so nice and full of related info
2. The pgn of all games in the championship are available to be viewed or downloaded. GiLoCatur wonders how they could key in all of them so quick and publish it fast. Our Malaysian chess juniors should take the advantage to study and learn the games.
3. The past records and history are complete and published in the website, even can be downloaded.
4. All the pairings and results are available immediately.
5. Even the score card for each participant or player is available. In that way, each participant can access his or her record and save or print them.
6. The bulletins are also available almost immediately and can be downloaded. Actually, these can be created quickly and easily once all the games are keyed in.

http://www.wjcc2010.pl/en

CHECK OUT THE ABOVE WEBSITE!

Dmitry Anderikin (Russia) won the Juniors section with 10/13 points

(photo from http://arcticchess.org)

Anna Muzychuk (Slovenia) won the Girls section with 11/13 points

(photo from http://forum.philboxing.com)

GiLoCatur wishes :

1. We, the Malaysian chess community, should have such website and learn how to have one like that.
2. Malaysia should send our top juniors to participate in the championship. It is a world class chess tournament needed by our junior players for exposure and experience. It is part of chess development program.
3. Our Malaysian chess juniors download the pgn of the championship and study them thoroughly especially as the preparation to participate in international and world-level chess championships.

MALAYSIA BOLEH!