On November 18, Nguyen Anh Khoi played the last game at the World Youth Chess, the U10 group. He defeated Andrey Esipenko though holding the black pawns. Khoi won all 11 games, with two points more than the runner-up.

Besides Nguyen Anh Khoi, Nguyen Thi Mai Hung also has the best performance at this tournament. She finished 4th in the U18 group.

Nguyen Anh Khoi’s achievement at this tournament did surprise Vietnamese and international chess fans. Statistics show that the performance of Khoi in the competition is very high, up to 2689 after 10 games (equivalent to a chessman with Elo 2689).

As the 13th seed of the tournament and with the Elo 1923, after this tournament, Khoi has accumulated more than 60 Elo, a great achievement.

Khoi’s achievement appeared in an article on the homepage of the famous chess site: www.chessdom.com. The article said that after this tournament, the Vietnamese boy will be widely known in the world.

The achievement of Khoi in this tournament is quite surprisingly but it is not too hard to understand because Khoi previously ranked 7th in the Asian Youth Chess Championships 2011 in the U10 group. In the Southeast Asian Youth Chess 2012, Khoi won the championship in the U10 group after taking 8 points after 9 games.

World famous chess coach Adrian Mikhalchishin, who coached famous player, has paid attention to Khoi after he defeated Viktor Matviishen in the 9th game though he held the black pawns. According to Adrian, most of Khoi’s moves in this game are the best moves that a player can make. He said: “I was really impressed, actually all moves are the best moves. Please remember this name.”

Eating noodles to become a chess champion

VietNamNet Bridge – From a boy who had a mania for online games, Nguyen Anh Khoi accidentally learned chess and then conquered most of the chess titles at the youth leagues.

Nguyen Anh Khoi’s chess career began accidentally. Previously the boy was very passionate about online games. He could sit in front of the computer from morning to midnight. Khoi’s parents decided to register for a chess class for their son, in order to pulling him far from the computer. The coach at this class found out Khoi’s talent in chess.

Khoi’s father, Nguyen Anh Tu said at first the boy did not really love chess. But when he could play well he began researching about chess.

In only two years since Khoi started playing chess, he made the coaching board of the Vietnamese chess team stunned when winning all six gold medals for individual and team events at the Southeast Asia Youth Chess Tournament, the U8 group.

With this achievement, Khoi was granted the FIDE master title. Also in 2010, he continued to take a gold medal for standard chess at the Asian Youth Chess Tournament, the U8 group. The achievements of Nguyen Anh Khoi were supplemented by two gold medals for standard and rapid chess in the Asian Youth Chess Championship 2012, the U10 group.

Although he is very young, Khoi plays very calmly, confidently. One of the weaknesses of this chess prodigy is his eating habits. In the days of competition, the only thing that Khoi could eat is instant noodles.

Nguyen Anh Khoi is a special case of Vietnamese chess. It is hoped that the child talent will be invested to become Vietnam’s pride in the future.

S. Tung

Official website: http://english.vietnamnet.vn

Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
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