World Juniors Rd.01: Dvorkovich visit and a tough start for the top seeds

"You can predict everything, but you cannot predict the Delhi traffic", these were the words of Bharat Singh Chauhan at the inauguration ceremony of the World Juniors 2019. Why did he say so? Well, because FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich who was scheduled to arrive for the opening ceremony at 2.30 p.m. was delayed by nearly an hour. But when Dvorkovich arrived at the venue, you could see the spring in his step and the intensity to get things done faster. The players were waiting for him, the round had to start at 3 p.m. and he didn't want to keep them waiting anymore.

Speaking to gathering, Dvorkovich said, "If zero tolerance rule would be applied to chess politicians, I would have been suspended already!" Dvorkovich's speech was crisp and short and dealt with how FIDE is trying its best to be as transparent as possible and to change the face of the chess world.

D.V. Sundar, the current Vice-President of FIDE in his speech summarized Dvorkovich's principles. Says Sundar, "During the elections, I was in the opposing team of Arkady Dvorkovich. We lost to a very desirable candidate. A few minutes after the defeat Dvorkovich came to me and said, I do not know if you are going to fight for the Vice President's spot, but I would like to have you as an honorary Vice President. At that point I realized that he was not a politician but a statesman." Later Dvorkovich confirmed this by saying, "It doesn't matter to me whether someone gave me a vote or not. The most important thing is to work together for the development of chess."

World Juniors Open:

The open section of the world juniors has 94 entries. 78 of them are titled players with 15 GMs and 31 IMs. The top seed of the tournament is GM Amin Tabatabaei and there are 18 players above the rating of 2500. While Iranian GM Amin Tabatabaei is the favourite, he will be provided stiff resistance from Aravindh Chithambaram and Karthikeyan Murali, second and third seeds of the event.

The starting rank list:

There was a point in the game where Tabatabaei could have taken his chances, but was unable to do so. It was quite a difficult resource to foresee:

Tabatabaei vs Aronyak

The right move in the above position was e5! With the subtle point that Rxf1 is met with e6! and Black is in trouble.

Karthikeyan took on b5 with his knight and sacrificed an exchange. Instead the better way to continue would have been to play ...Ne6! A powerful move when after Bxa5 Qxa5 the knight on b5 is trapped!

After Nxf8, Shant Sargsyan took on h2 with Bxh2+ Kxh2 and this was followed up by Rh6+ White now threw in the towel with Qh3 but instead of he had gone Kg1 then after Nf4 Qf3, the very pretty mate starts with Qxg2+! Qxg2 Ne2#

Hakobyan vs Floryan

Hakobyan vs Floryan

The problem with Qxa8 is that after fxg5, White has to agree to a draw as g3 is coming up. Aram, who looks like he is in great form, continued with d4! opening up the center. after fxg5 he played d5! and now it is White who would reach faster to the black king because the d-file has also opened up!

Here are a couple of interesting games that took place in round one that have been annotated by WIM Angela Frank Jain:

Girls Section:

It is perhaps for the first time in the history of chess that the number of participants in World Junior girls is equal to the participants in World Junior open section! Both have 94 players. The top seed of the tournament is the strong Chinese player Zhu Jiner (2507). Zhu is rated above 2500 but she hasn't applied for her WGM or IM titles. She is still a WIM. Zhu Jiner will face stiff resistance from players like Stavroula Tsolakidou, Nurgyul Salimova, Polina Shuvalova and local girl R. Vaishali.

Starting rank in girls under-20

Zhu Jiner vs Kotia

Nomindalai vs Shuvalova

Highlights of round 1:

The ChessBase India team at the venue has worked hard to create highlights for day one of the World Junior Championships 2019. It has the video clips so that you can get a feel of the players fighting it out at the venue and it also has some expert analysis so you know where the players are going wrong and learn from it. Let us know in the comments section below, whether you like this video or not!

A big thanks to Angela Frank Jain for annotating the games of round one. She will also annotate some of the games in the next rounds as well.

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