The World Youth Chess Championship 2012 in Maribor, Slovenia, is starting in just a few days, and we continue the preview of the strongest participants of the competition. After a comprehensive look at the U18 sections, today we will take a look at the U16 young stars.
WYCC 2012, U16 boys
The top participant in the U16 section according to the October FIDE rating list is IM Urii Eliseev. He has an ELO rating of 2486 and is on the brink of crossing the 2500 barrier, as he is gaining rating in the currently ongoing Chigorin Memorial.
With ELO 2456 as second seeded in the WYCC 2012 U16 section is IM Dennis Wagner. For 21 consecutive rating lists, starting September 2009, the ELO of the young talent is constantly rising. It all started with the U14 young talent tournaments, part of Mainz Chess Classics and Ordix Open in 2008, and later continued with strong performances at international opens.
With just one ELO point less than Dennis Wagner, currently at 2455, third seeded is IM Maksim Chigaev. He has been very active in the past months, entering in the top 20 of the strong Nezhmetdinov trophy and battling well in the Chigorin Rapid.
The list of players U16 above 2400 is completed by IM Kirill Alekseenko, IM Matthias Bluebaum, Tomas Laurusas, and FM Nima Javanbakht.
WYCC 2012, U16 girls
In the U16 girls section of the World Youth Chess Championship 2012 the clear top seeded is WIM Sarasadat Khademalsharieh. The young star of Iran, born in 1997, has already shown fantastic results this year and is the only player in the section above 2300 ELO. Back in 2009 the young star amazed the world with silver medal at a national championship, the same year she had also won the gold medal from the Asian Youth Championship. WIM Khademalsharieh impressed on several occasions this year, most notably with the performance at the 10th Khazar Cup International Open Chess Tournament, where she defeated GM Morteza Mahjoob, GM Sarhan Guliev, drew with IM Davit Benidze, IM Luka Paichadze, and GM Valeriane Gaprindashvili, and finished in the top half of the table with 35 ELO points gained.
The closest opponent by rating to WIM Sarasadat Khademalsharieh is the big hope of Kazakkstan, WIM Dinara Saduakassova. She comes in great form, as in the Istanbul Chess Olympiad she scored 7,0/9 and was awarded the Women Grandmaster title (soon to be validated). Dinara Saduakassova is already a world champion U14, she won her first title in WYCC 2010. Moreover, she is a triple world and Asian Vice-Champion. Now certainly she comes for another medal in Maribor World Youth Chess Championship.
Four more players U16 are above 2200 ELO in the October FIDE rating list. The most famous of them is WIM Paula Andrea Rodriguez Rueda, who is Panamerican U20 champion and finished in top 15 of this year’s World Junior Chess Championship. The other names in the list are the untitled Chinese Lei Tingjie, the untitled Ukranian Maria Tantsiura, and WFM Filiz Osmanodja.
Here are the full lists of participants in the U16 World Youth Chess Championship in Maribor, Slovenia.
Top seeds:
World Youth Chess 2012, U16 boys
IM Eliseev Urii RUS 2486
IM Wagner Dennis GER 2456
IM Chigaev Maksim RUS 2455
FM Alekseenko Kirill RUS 2434
IM Bluebaum Matthias GER 2433
Laurusas Tomas LTU 2425
FM Javanbakht Nima IRI 2416
Svane Rasmus GER 2394
Giroyan Gary FRA 2382
FM Girish A. Koushik IND 2367
FM Bortnyk Olexandr UKR 2361
Akhmetov Ayan KAZ 2356
FM Ynojosa Felix Jose VEN 2356
FM Ebeling Daniel FIN 2350
US has no chance again.
Rating wise it seems that way. But let’s not count out the US as there are a few very strong players. Examples: K. Troff, Chris Gu and Christopher Wu.