Daily on Chessdom.com we will be publishing a preview of an age group of the World Youth Chess Championship 2012. Today we start with the eldest of the participants, the group of participants boys and girls U18.

Top seeded player of the competition and only participant above 2600 ELO is the Grandmaster from Poland Dariusz Swiercz. He is already a proven young talent in the chess world, often participating in closed invitationals and strong opens. His first major success came with the bronze medal at the WJCC 2010, and just an year later he showed even better chess conquering the World Junior 2011. Now he is coming for gold in the youth categories as well.

His task will not be an easy one, there are 50 title players in his category this year. Closest by rating is FM David Anton Guijarro, the hope of Spain for the U18 category, but the list of players continues with seasoned youngsters such as IM Benjamin Bok (Netherlands), IM Karen Grigoryan (Armenia), GM Jorge Cori (Peru), IM Maxime Lagarde (France), GM Hovhannes Gabuzyan (Armenia), all of them above 2500 ELO.

In the girls category top seeded is WGM Meri Arabidze. This year she was just 1/2 points away from sharing first at the World Junior 2012 and will certainly be looking for her gold medal in Maribor. Looking at ratings, WGM Arabidze with ELO 2391 has only one direct opponent – the world’s youngest WGM at her time WGM Alexandra Goryachkina with ELO 2384. All other opponents are at least 100 ELO points behind, but looking at the names everyone who follows youth categories in chess knows it will not be an easy task with WIM Lisa Schut, WIM Ghazal Hakimifard, WIM Nguyen Thi Mai Hung, FM Daria Pustovoitova, WIM Marina Brunello, WFM Amalia Aranaz Murillo, Hanna-Marie Klek all aiming for the title.

Here are the lists of the U18 boys and girls categories at the World Youth Chess Championship 2012.

Official website / Preview / Live games

World Youth Chess 2012, participants boys U18 

GM Swiercz Dariusz POL 2609 
FM Anton Guijarro David ESP 2550 
IM Bok Benjamin NED 2530 
IM Grigoryan Karen H. ARM 2524 
GM Cori Jorge PER 2522 
IM Lagarde Maxime FRA 2501 
GM Gabuzyan Hovhannes ARM 2500 
GM Fedoseev Vladimir RUS 2498 
GM Bukavshin Ivan RUS 2494 
Predke Alexandr RUS 2491 
IM Forcen Esteban Daniel ESP 2473 
IM Kovalev Vladislav BLR 2473 
FM Duda Jan-Krzysztof POL 2470 
IM Idani Pouya IRI 2470 
IM Andersen Mads DEN 2461 
IM Narayanan Srinath IND 2448 
IM Mammadov Zaur AZE 2442 
IM Zhou Yang-Fan ENG 2414 
Nagy Gabor HUN 2408 
FM Ferreira Jorge Viterbo POR 2402 
IM Sochacki Christophe FRA 2402

Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
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