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World Youth 2019 begins with the downfall of defending under-18 champion

by Sagar Shah - 03/10/2019

The World Youth Championships 2019 kicked off on the 2nd of October 2019 in Mumbai. India. The biggest upset of round one was defending champion Viktor Gazik losing his game to local lad Vedant Panesar. Gazik sacrificed an exchange in the style of Petrosian, but never really had enough compensation. In the past players like Tiviakov and Andersson have been successful with a similar idea. In this article we try to find what was the difference between those sacrifices and Viktor's. We also feature a brave-hearts of the tournament Harshita Guddanti, a girl who is playing in the open section. Round one report from the venue by Sagar Shah and Amruta Mokal.


The first day of any age group event is quite chaotic. The parents who have come to drop their kids for the first game want to ensure that their children have safely reached the board. In order to do that they enter the tournament venue, but once that happens it's very difficult for the organizers to control things. In this respect the organizers of the World Youth Championships 2019 found quite an interesting solution:

The parents were cordoned off so that they couldn't enter the playing hall, but they could still see everything that was going on! | Photo: Amruta Mokal

Some parents and coaches were quite relaxed on day one! | Photo: Amruta Mokal

While some as you can see here were visibly tensed! | Photo: Amruta Mokal

Some proud parents also tried to get pictures of their young ones! World Youth Championships after all is a highly prestigious event! | Photo: Amruta Mokal

It's amazing that all the 464 participants at the event have been accommodated in a single playing hall! It's the ballroom at the Renaissance Hotel in Mumbai. | Photo: Amruta Mokal

Youth = Freshness!

When you visit a youth tournament, the first thing you see is that these youngsters aren't afraid to experiment. Both on and off the board! We will come to the on the board experiments later in this report, but let's first have a look at same off the board ones!

You can find different colours of hair at the tournament! | Photo: Amruta Mokal

And also many different hair styles! | Photo: Amruta Mokal

If things don't work in a straight forward manner, reverse the order! | Photo: Amruta Mokal

This youngster came to the game in a Sherwani! Looks smart doesn't he? Well, the Sherwani is usually worn by a bridegroom at his wedding! | Photo: Amruta Mokal

The organizers too were creative as they provided all the players with a unique pen! | Photo: Amruta Mokal

Brave-heart of the tournament!

I have always wondered why players like Judit Polgar or Humpy Koneru or Hou Yifan became the best in women's chess? One common thing between all three of them, is that they always preferred to fight it out with the boys! They wanted the strongest competition right from a very young age and they were always open to the idea of playing in the open section! In fact Judit, the greatest woman player of all time, hardly ever played in the girl's section. These world class players have always been vocal about this fact that girls should play in open section. Yet, I see not many girls ready to take the chance of fighting it out with the boys! At the World Youth 2019, we have an exceptions!

Harshita Guddanti is playing in the under-18 open section | Photo: Amruta Mokal
Harshita Guddanti speaks about why she decided to play in the open section and not in girls

Round 1 - a not so smooth sailing for top seeds!

Opening move of round 1 of the event by Bharat Singh Chauhan, AICF Secretary and D.V. Sundar FIDE Vice President | Photo: Sagar Shah

The biggest upset of round one was definitely India's under-17 champion Vedant Panesar getting the better of the defending under-18 world champion Viktor Gazik.

Vedant Panesar, when he received the under-17 national title

Here's the game by Vedant to beat his opponent who was rated over 300 Elo points above him:

The sacrifice by Gazik ...Rxe3 isn't uncommon. In fact Ulf Andersson had once held a draw against World Champion Garry Kasparov with this similar idea:

Sergey Tiviakov in fact was even able to beat Razuvaev with this sacrifice:

However, if you look at the above games closely you will realize that Gazik's sacrifice wasn't well timed.

Yes, ...Rxe3 looks tempting. However after fxe3, White has all his pieces nicely developed and more importantly he can just play Rc1 and start putting pressure on the c7 pawn. In both Kasparov-Andersson and Tiviakov-Razuvaev, the c7 pawn was never weak!

It is going to take a lot of effort on the part of Viktor Gazik to reproduce the performance on 2018 after this first round loss

Non transmission of games

According to the situation on the ground, a key part of the live broadcast setup was missing on day one. The organizers are trying their best to get that before round two begins. As a result of this glitch, most of the games in round one were not broadcast live.

Under-14 Open

Top seed Sreeshwan had a not so easy game in round one against local talent Anirudh Potawad, but managed to win his game! | Photo: Amruta Mokal
Sreeshwan talks about his win over Anirudh and how he won the queen versus rook endgame

Volodar Murzin, the second seed in the under-14 open section, won his game against Vinay Jumani | Photo: Amruta Mokal

Aydin Suleymani on board three beat De Silve LMST | Photo: Amruta Mokal

Aditya Varun Gampa provided the upset of the round in the under-14 boys when he held Andrey Tsvetkov to a draw. Pranav V (2308) lost his round one game against Abinandhan (1830).

Bo.No. NameFEDRtgPts. ResultPts. NameFEDRtg No.
11
FMSreeshwan Maralakshikari IND24490 1 - 00 Potawad Anirudhha IND1914
46
247
Vinay R Jumani IND19000 0 - 10 FMMurzin Volodar RUS2433
2
33
IMSuleymanli Aydin AZE24260 1 - 00 FMDe Silva L M S T SRI1879
48
449
Aditya Varun Gampa IND18790 ½ - ½0 FMTsvetkov Andrey RUS2382
4
55
FMPranav Anand IND23510 1 - 00 CMKadam Om Manish IND1872
50
651
Stijve Niels SUI18680 0 - 10 Samant Aditya S IND2334
6
77
FMPetkov Momchil BUL23330 1 - 00 Beukema Constantijn BEL1864
52
853
Shah Jeet IND18440 0 - 10 FMChyzy Jakub POL2327
8
99
FMBorhy Marcell HUN23210 1 - 00 CMMohamed Saeed Laily UAE1836
54
1055
Abinandhan R IND18300 1 - 00 Pranav V IND2308
10

Under-14 Girls

The favourite in the under-14 girls Divya Deshmukh had very little difficulty in winning her first round game against Fatima Marium | Photo: Amruta Mokal

Rakshitta Ravi also won quite easily against Patricia Anastas | Photo: Amruta Mokal

Ayan Allahverdiyeva beat Tanisha Boramanikar | Photo: Amruta Mokal

Round 1 results

Bo.No. NameFEDRtgPts. ResultPts. NameFEDRtg No.
11
WIMDivya Deshmukh IND23580 1 - 00 Marium Fatima IND1628
41
242
WCMAbdala Cancino Patricia Anastas CHI16080 0 - 10 WIMRakshitta Ravi IND2310
2
33
WFMAllahverdiyeva Ayan AZE21600 1 - 00 Boramanikar Tanisha S IND1607
43
444
Ray Hiya WLS15960 0 - 10 WFMNasyrova Ekaterina RUS2137
4
55
Roebers Eline NED20830 1 - 00 Ananya Arumbakkam IND1583
45
646
Tanvi Vasudev Hadkonkar IND15820 ½ - ½0 WFMOmonova Umida UZB2078
6
77
Poliakova Varvara BLR20420 1 - 00 WCMKriti Mayur Patel IND1551
47
848
Femil Chelladurai IND15440 ½ - ½0 WFMKamalidenova Meruert KAZ2025
8
99
WFMDhyana Patel IND19950 1 - 00 Marthinussen Emma Viktoria Lia NOR1544
49
1050
Swara Lakshmi S Nair IND15360 0 - 10 WCMObada Ema ROU1987
10

Under-16 open

Hans Niemann from USA, the top seed in under-16, won his game against Karthik Sai Ch | Photo: Amruta Mokal

Adrian Zetocha (2043) from Slovakia provided a mini-upset by holding Nikolozi Kacharava to a draw. Adrian was rated nearly 400 Elo points below his opponent. | Photo: Amruta Mokal

Under-16 open round 1 results

Bo.No. NameFEDRtgPts. ResultPts. NameFEDRtg No.
11
IMNiemann Hans Moke USA24390 1 - 00 Karthik Sai Ch IND2046
40
241
Zetocha Adrian SVK20430 ½ - ½0 FMKacharava Nikolozi GEO2428
2
33
IMAvila Pavas Santiago COL24060 1 - 00 Goderdzishvili Giga GEO2038
42
443
Tomiello Mateus Costamilan BRA20300 0 - 10 FMGharibyan Mamikon ARM2388
4
55
FMDaghli Arash IRI23870 1 - 00 Skurniak Szymon POL1997
44
645
Bagvilas Lukas LTU19830 0 - 10 FMNogerbek Kazybek KAZ2387
6
77
IMMakarian Rudik RUS23860 1 - 00 Alvarez Angel Nelson Eduardo COL1974
46
847
Sadnan Hasan Dihan BAN19730 - - +0 CMAronyak Ghosh IND2380
8
99
IMRaja Rithvik R IND23690 1 - 00 Jayachandra Srinivas Vellanki IND1967
48
1049
Kanishk S K IND19390 0 - 10 IMSankalp Gupta IND2369
10

Under-16 girls

Leya Garifullina beat Anjum Noshin on board one | Photo: Amruta Mokal

Govhar Beydullayeva won her game against Poorna Sri | Photo: Amruta Mokal

Murdul Dehankar won her game against Kristyna Otrubova on board three | Photo: Amruta Mokal

Two mini-upsets occurred on boards nine and ten - Ge eva (1673) drew her game against Alessia- Mihaela Ciolacu (2095) and Arushi Kotwal (1657) holding Zhang Xiao (2053) to a draw.

 

Under-16 girls - results of round one

Bo.No. NameFEDRtgPts. ResultPts. NameFEDRtg No.
11
WCMGarifullina Leya RUS23300 1 - 00 WFMNoshin Anjum BAN1793
36
237
Poorna Sri M.K IND17870 0 - 10 WFMBeydullayeva Govhar AZE2289
2
33
WCMMrudul Dehankar IND22270 1 - 00 Otrubova Kristyna CZE1766
38
439
Meenatchi Rajam V IND17640 0 - 10 WFMNurgali Nazerke KAZ2194
4
55
WFMBulatova Kamaliya RUS21810 1 - 00 Lei Amy USA1754
40
641
Eesha Ajay Sarda IND17440 0 - 10 WFMLoskutova Viktoriya RUS2149
6
77
WFMMahdian Anousha IRI21030 1 - 00 Maciulaityte Barbora LTU1682
42
843
WCMAl Maamari Wafia Darwish UAE16730 0 - 10 WFMSrdanovic Jovana SRB2100
8
99
WFMCiolacu Alessia-Mihaela ROU20950 ½ - ½0 Ge Eva AUS1673
44
1045
WCMArushi Kotwal IND16570 ½ - ½0 Zhang Xiao CHN2053
10

Under-18 Open

Shant Sargsyan gained 18 Elo points in the October rating list and is now the top seed in the under-18 section. | Photo: Amruta Mokal

Praggnanandhaa beat Massimiliano Botta with the Vaganian Gambit | Photo: Amruta Mokal
Pragg discusses his win in round one

Under-18 open - round 1 results

Bo.No. NameFEDRtgPts. ResultPts. NameFEDRtg No.
11
GMSargsyan Shant ARM25800 1 - 00 FMSydoryka Vladyslav UKR2247
38
239
Botta Massimiliano ITA22390 0 - 10 GMPraggnanandhaa R IND2567
2
33
IMGholami Aryan IRI25540 1 - 00 FMSramek Vojtech CZE2221
40
441
Panesar Vedant IND22190 1 - 00 IMGazik Viktor SVK2546
4
55
GMIniyan P IND25090 1 - 00 FMDonoso Diaz Sebastian CHI2203
42
643
Kizatbay Abyl NOR21600 0 - 10 IMGumularz Szymon POL2505
6
77
IMPultinevicius Paulius LTU25030 1 - 00 FMVatsal Singhania IND2157
44
845
FMZrikem Nassim MAR21250 - - +0 IMArjun Kalyan IND2483
8
99
IMRahul Srivatshav P IND24600 1 - 00 WIMHarshita Guddanti IND2123
46
1047
Arjun C Krishnamachari IND21230 0 - 10 IMRaghunandan Kaumandur Srihari IND2449
10

Under-18 girls

Polina Shuvalova is the defending champion in the under-18 girls section and she began with a win against Kristyna Laurincova | Photo: Amruta Mokal

The second seed of the event Turmunkh Munkhzul was held to a draw by her Singaporean opponent Emmanuelle Hng | Photo: Amruta Mokal

This was a good result for Emmanuelle Hng Mei-En | Photo: Amruta Mokal

India's Jyothsna L managed to hold Lara Schulze to a draw | Photo: Amruta Mokal
Bo.No. NameFEDRtgPts. ResultPts. NameFEDRtg No.
11
WIMShuvalova Polina RUS24120 1 - 00 WFMLaurincova Kristyna CZE2006
33
234
WFMHng Mei-En Emmanuelle SGP20020 ½ - ½0 WIMMunkhzul Turmunkh MGL2332
2
33
FMSchulze Lara GER23270 ½ - ½0 WCMJyothsna L IND1995
35
436
Zeliantsova Kseniya BLR19940 1 - 00 WFMAfonasieva Anna RUS2312
4
55
WIMSliwicka Alicja POL23070 ½ - ½0 WFMSanskriti Goyal IND1980
37
638
Pandey Srishti IND19630 0 - 10 WIMVantika Agrawal IND2283
6
77
WGMObolentseva Alexandra RUS22820 1 - 00 WFMSankova Stella SVK1926
39
840
Simkunaite Gabija LTU19260 0 - 10 WFMRadeva Viktoria BUL2277
8
99
WIMMuetsch Annmarie GER22660 1 - 00 Srimathi R IND1914
41
1042
Onur Cigdem TUR19130 1 - 00 Yan Tianqi CHN2236
10
1111
WFMHarshini A IND22300 ½ - ½0 Golub Nikolina CRO1899
43