400 young chess players vying for world youth chess titles

Some 400 chess players between the ages of 9 and 18 from 53 nations are vying for the World Youth Chess Championship titles here in several categories.

The tournament, which started last Sunday, September 17, and runs through this coming Tuesday, will determine six world champions in the Sub'14, Sub'16 and Sub'18 categories for both boys and girls, reports Efe news agency.

"The competition is everything we had expected and without any shocks, without anything that has been able to surprise us, and we're very pleased with that," Uruguayan Chess Federation President Bernardo Roselli told EFE.

"We're presenting Uruguay as an organised, advanced... country (in chess) and, besides that, people are enjoying (themselves) a lot and fortunately they've had a lot of time to be able to visit our beloved city," he said.

With 44 players, the host country is the one with the largest contingent participating in the tourney, followed by Argentina with 32 and the US with 28.

Roselli said the participants are, in general, the champions in each category from their home countries, but other young high-quality players are also on the list of participants.

"The system of play is called the Swiss system, with 11 rounds. It's a system that lets you pair off against players who have the same point scores round after round, alternating the colour of the pieces," he said.

"I think that the US, Russia and India are the candidates" for winning the various titles in contention, said Roselli, adding that "India is very strong in children's chess and China could have been if they had brought more players, but they brought very few this time".

He also said that the category with the most participants this year is Sub'14 "because the great majority of Uruguayans who signed up are very young".

The tournament is being held in Montevideo's Sheraton Hotel and since 2011 the city has hosted a number of international chess contests, including the South American championship in 2014 and the Pan American one in 2016.

--IANS

sam/dg