Post date: 14-Nov-2009 18:05:03
The World Youth Chess Championships began in Turkey on Thursday 12 November. The following report was compiled by Gerard as the Tournament progressed.
Anna Wang is representing England in the World Girls' Under-10 Championship (11 rounds, finishing on Sunday 22nd). She has made a fine start with 2/2. She won her first-round game with Black against Paula Gitu of Moldova, and has beaten the Bulgarian, Donika Shivacheva, in Round Two today.
Round 3 update: Anna has scored another win today to retain her 100% record. She faced a very tough Russian opponent, Anna Vasenina, who is already a Woman Fide Master, a title she gained by winning the European Girls' Under-10 Championship in Italy in September.
Round 4 update: An exciting hard-fought contest between Anna and Veronika Gazikova from Slovakia, finally ending in a draw after 71 moves. As it was the top-board game in the section, it was broadcast live online from the Championship website, so I can give an account of it. Anna seemed to find it hard to come up with a plan after getting a slight edge in the opening against her opponent's Alekhine's defence, and dropped a pawn when the game got tactical. Her opponent then played a very attractive pseudo-sacrifice, giving up temporarily first a knight, and then her queen for a knight, to set up a fork to win back Anna's queen and reach an ending with knight and six pawns against knight and five. It looked grim, but Gazikova, after missing the chance to force a swap of the knights for a straightforwardly winning pawn ending, carelessly allowed Anna to get her pawn back, and after some passive play by Black, Anna was even winning. It eventually came down to a technically winning ending in which Anna had knight and pawn against knight; but these endings can be very tricky, and, perhaps partly through fatigue (and maybe playing a little too quickly?), Anna didn't quite manage to solve all the problems her opponent set her. A terrific game, which I look forward to analysing for the next edition of The Chequered Board. Anna now has 3.5 points out of 4.
Rounds 5 & 6: Today (Monday) was a tough day with two rounds played before a rest day tomorrow. In Round 5 this morning, Anna had White against a Chinese girl, Kexin Liu, and scored another win, this time in 34 moves, taking her score to 4.5 out of 5, remaining in equal second place. In Round 6, she played Irina Drogovoz (Russia), and suffered her first loss. Anna played a Sicilian Dragon, played too passively at a critical point, and White's kingside attack crashed through. She now has 4.5/6, and stands 5= in a field of more than 80 players with five rounds still to play. Round 7 is on Wednesday.
Round 7 (Wednesday 18 Nov.): Anna had White today against Sofia Rodriguez of Colombia, who has the second highest international rating in the tournament (Elo 1926, roughly equivalent to ECF 160). The game wasn't on the live transmission, but I can tell you that Anna scored another win, bringing her score up to 5.5 out of 7, and she now lies equal third. In Thursday's Round 8 she will play the second-placed player, Tea Choladze, from Georgia.
You may also like to look at the ECF site (http://www.englishchess.org.uk/), which has at last posted some reports from the English squad in Turkey: follow the link from their homepage to 'Pictures from Turkey' and see who you can recognize in the snaps.
Round 8 (Thursday): I think it's fair to say that in the early part of today's game Anna, playing White, was outplayed by her Georgian opponent. On move 21 Black, material up with much the better position, played a little combination to further increase her advantage. Unfortunately for her, Anna spotted that the combination decisively weakened Black's back rank, and seized her chance to end the game on the spot with a simple piece sacrifice exploiting this. She must have been learning from Will Burt's swindles! She now has 6.5 out of 8, and is alone in second place, closely followed by seven girls on six points. Tomorrow she plays Black against the leader, Gunay Vugar Qizi Mammadzada of Azerbaijan, who has scored eight straight wins.
Round 9: Anna started the game well. Playing the Sicilian Dragon against the leader, Mammadzada (Azerbaijan), she emerged from the opening with a clear advantage: an extra pawn and the two bishops. Unfortunately she started drifting about move 25, and, rather than completing her development, removed her unopposed black-square bishop from the defence of the kingside, which gave White chances. Suddenly Anna needed to play very accurately, which can be extremely difficult to do when you see your advantage evaporating; and soon, with her pieces badly disorganized and her king exposed to attack, she could not avoid the loss of a piece, and a totally lost ending. Mammadzada, after this ninth straight win, is two points ahead with two rounds remaining, while Anna remains on 6.5 points, dropping to equal sixth position.
Round 10 (Saturday): Today Anna's opponent from yesterday scored a tenth consecutive victory to secure the title with a round to spare. Anna had another very tough assignment, playing Black against the girl with the highest international rating in the tournament, Dinara Dordzhieva of Russia (Elo 1973, which converts to an English grade of 165). This proved too tough today, and Anna remains on 6.5 points, dropping to ninth equal place in the field of 83 players. In the final round tomorrow, she has White against an American girl, Simone Liao, who gained the Woman Fide Master title for her performance in the Pan-American Girls' U10 Championship in September.
You may also like to know that a link has appeared on the ECF home page (http://www.englishchess.org.uk/) to a report from GM Neil McDonald on the first seven rounds which has a paragraph about Anna.
[If I may digress, Anna's game this afternoon wasn't transmitted live, but from among those that were, I noticed that in the Under-8 Girls' Championship there is an Annie Wang representing the USA, doing well with 7/9. Her game began amusingly: 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.c3 Nf6 4.Be2 and now her young Chinese opponent played 4...Nxe4??, dropping a piece after 5.Qa4+. To her credit, though, the young Chinese fought on and on, and eventually turned the tables to win. Addendum to digression (Sunday): The Chinese girl in question, Ruotong Chu, went on to win her final game and the Under-8 world title, while the American, Annie Wang, faltered towards the end like her near namesake, and finished 13= with 7/11.]
Final Round (Sunday): After a further loss in today's final round, Anna has finished with 6.5/11, in 18th place out of a field of 83 players. I hope that Anna herself, despite running out of steam at the end of the tournament, will be pleased overall with her performance, and with the experience she has gained over the last eleven days. After all, 6.5 ('plus two') in a world title championship is a very good score, and even better than it sounds when you consider that she played seven of the nine highest graded girls in the event. We congratulate her! A final note [added by Will Burt: thanks, Will!]: despite losing the last three games (against strong opposition - including a good effort against the overall winner) Anna's overall rating performance of just over 1800 was the third highest of all the entrants, exceeded only by the champion and one other high-placed finisher.