XIONG BECOMES THE JUNIOR CHAMPION WITH A ROUND TO SPARE
AUGUST 20, 2016
Jeffery Xiong of the USA scored a comfortable victory with the black pieces to become the World Junior Chess Champion 2016 with a round to spare. In a Sicilian Defence, Grand Prix Variation, his opponent IM Paulo Bersamina went slightly wrong in the early middlegame, allowing Xiong to roll over his opponent in the endgame. With 10.0/12, Xiong has taken an unassailable 1.5 point lead over his nearest opponents. At 15, Xiong is amongst the youngest World Junior Champions in chess history.
The second board game between IM Nasuta Grzegorz and the top seed GM Vladislav Artemiev of Russia ended in a draw. Both the players are tied for the second spot at 8.5/12. The third board game between Iran’s Parham Maghsoodloo and India’s GM Aravindh Chithambaram was an interesting affair, where Parham amassed a huge advantage. Nevertheless, despite being an exchange for a pawn up, he could not convert and the game ended in a draw.
The girls’ section saw the Kazakh WGM Dinara Saduakassova take the sole lead in the tournament just in the nick of time. Saduakassova beat Colombian IM Andrea Rodriguez to move to 9.0/12. In another surprise, WIM Frayna Janelle Mae, who was in the lead for the most part of the tournament lost her second game on a trot, this time to India’s WIM Parnali Dharia. Erst-while joint leader WIM Pv Nandhidhaa too ended up losing to Mongolian WIM Uurtsaikhu Urintuya. All of them are not joint second at 8.0/12. WIM Dinara Dordzhieva managed to put it across WIM Michelle Catherina to move to the second position with 8.5/12.
1 comment