English Chess Forum

World Junior 2010 Report

The 2010 World Juniors and Girls U-20 Chess Championships were held from August 2 (arrival day) to 17 (departure day) at Chotowa, Municipality Czarna, close to the city of Tarnow in Poland. England were represented by Yang-Fan Zhou in the junior section and Anya Corke in the girls event. Both were coached by Grandmaster Mark Hebden and the players participation was funded by the John Robinson Trust and Junior & International Directors.

Anya finished 6th= with a score of 8.5/13 whilst Yang-Fan finished with 5.5/13. It is worth mentioning that Yang-Fan is only 15 and this is an under 20 event over 13 rounds so whilst it was a strong and gruelling event it was great experience for him and I’m sure we will see him at the event in future years.

The round by round results were as follows:

Round by round results:

Yang-Fan Zhou 5.5/13:

1 IM Nyzhnyk, Illya 2543 v Yang-Fan 1-0
2 Yang-Fan v Sreeves, Clement 2085 1-0
3 IM Sethuraman, Sethuraman Panayappan 2513 v Yang-Fan 0-1
4 Yang-Fan v IM Volodin, Aleksandr 2422 0-1
5 IM Durarbeyli, Vasif 2501 v Yang-Fan 1-0
6 Yang-Fan v Lewicki, Miroslaw 2149 1-0
7 IM Potapov, Pavel 2445 v Yang Fan 1-0
8 Yang-Fan v Roos, Adrian 2097 0.5-0.5
9 Larmuseau, Maarten 2277 v Yang Fan 1-0
10 Yang-Fan v Pecha, Tomas 2187 1-0
11 Van Rensburg, Ryan Pierre 2079 v Yang-Fan 0.5-0.5
12 Yang-Fan v IM Ashwin, Jayaram 2454 0-1
13 Green, Andrew D 2172 v Yang-Fan 0.5-0.

Anya Corke 8.5/13:

1 WFM Petrova, Irina 2014 v Anya 0.5-0.5
2 Anya v Pratyusha, Bodda 2073 0-1
3 Correa, Jaqueline Pamplona 1928 v Anya 0-1
4 Anya v Deur, Zrinka 2061 1-0
5 Newrkla, Katharina 2105 v Anya 0.5-0.5
6 Anya v Forestier, Carole 2103 1-0
7 WFM Gosciniak, Maria 2149 v Anya 0-1
8 Anya v WIM Nakhbayeva, Guliskhan 2216 1-0
9 WGM Padmini, Rout 2277 v Anya 1-0
10 Anya v WIM Heredia Serrano, Carla Sofia 2080 1-0
11 WIM Melekhina, Alisa 2265 v Anya 1-0
12 WFM Mammadova, Gulnar Marfat 2260 v Anya 0.5-0.5
13 Anya v WFM Kulon, Klaudia 2230

Up to date coverage is available at the following links:

http://www.chessarbiter.to.pl/turnieje/t_3905/
http://www.chessarbiter.to.pl/turnieje/t_3906/

My thanks to the players, coach and everyone else who supported them during the event.

Lawrence Cooper 17/8/10
Director of International Chess
English Chess Federation

It strikes me that this was a rather good performance from Anya, which maybe hasn't got the coverage it has deserved. Being near the top throughout and finishing =6th is very good.
Yang-Fan's performance is pretty disappointing (2245 TPR). He had a very impressive win in round 3, but couldn't maintain his performance (I seem to remember something similar at the U16 Olympiad). The DCMS grant comes from the 'Elite Sports' section and they would want to know what is the ECF going to do for Yang-Fan over the next five years so that he will be in medal contention in 2015 (or before). What would we say?

Now that the event is over, the story can safely be told.

LozCooper (on the ECF website) wrote:I will also be updating results of the two English players here: http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=1995

Yes, that's right. An ECF Director published a link to this Forum on the ECF website.

The man is a dangerous menace. He must be sent to Siberia before the end of September.

Matthew,

Anya's performance was on par with her rating, normally I would say an excellent tournament would be at least +1 above your expected score

Alan,
Anya's rating is quite high (boosted by the Olympiad factor?) so she was ranked 14. This makes it quite difficult to 'outperform'. At junior events many of the players might also be significantly under-rated. In these circumstances, I think Anya's performance was really very good.

Not knowing Anya's strength in great detail, the only guide is performance against rating. Admittedly your knowledge is more in depth than mine, but I do agree 8.5/13 was a good result, I will have to check out the games some time

Matthew Turner wrote:It strikes me that this was a rather good performance from Anya, which maybe hasn't got the coverage it has deserved. Being near the top throughout and finishing =6th is very good.
Yang-Fan's performance is pretty disappointing (2245 TPR). He had a very impressive win in round 3, but couldn't maintain his performance (I seem to remember something similar at the U16 Olympiad). The DCMS grant comes from the 'Elite Sports' section and they would want to know what is the ECF going to do for Yang-Fan over the next five years so that he will be in medal contention in 2015 (or before). What would we say?

I would say that Yang-Fan is 15, the event is under 20, 13 rounds and therefore very tough. The experience he has gained will be invaluable and will be of great benefit to him if, as expected, he represents us on future occasions. Having been at the World Junior in 2008 I can't stress how tiring these events are, especially with the incremental time limit.

My advice to the DCMS is that the best way of maximising our chances in the future are to keep the grant and not take it away. English players get far less opportunities and coaching than a lot of our rival countries and whilst I am doing my best to change that clearly there is a limit to what can be done, especially in the short term, with limited funding.

Loz,
I wasn't meaning to be critical or to put you on the spot. When we send a 15 year-old to the World U20 we must think that he is pretty special. However, if you look at the amount of money from the 'elite sports' government grant that goes on his development it is very small. To maintain the government grant we have to start spending it on the purposes for which it is intended.

Matthew Turner wrote:Loz,
I wasn't meaning to be critical or to put you on the spot. When we send a 15 year-old to the World U20 we must think that he is pretty special. However, if you look at the amount of money from the 'elite sports' government grant that goes on his development it is very small. To maintain the government grant we have to start spending it on the purposes for which it is intended.

Well in Yang-Fan's case he's the highest rated and I also believe the best player so age wasn't an issue. Obviously the younger a player is the more room there is for improvement and potential etc

I agree that the amounts spent on junior chess & international are small given the amount spent on admin, although at least the current board is trying to redress this balance. It's fortunate that we have the John Robinson Trust and I'm liasing with them to fund what I believe are the right areas.

As an aside, Jan-Krzysztof Duda from Poland also played, and scored 6.5. He is a FIDE U12.

As a parent of a promising player in Duda's age group I have found the ECF junior approach actively hostile to any ambition to play in strong tournaments or attain a high FIDE rating. Children from other nations are meanwhile achieving a level of excellence many years in advance of their English contemporaries. It has been uncomfortable to have to explain to a child that we can't see how he can achieve his potential within the ECF junior programme.

David Sedgwick wrote: The man is a dangerous menace. He must be sent to Siberia before the end of September.

And made to stay in a hotel not yet constructed

PaulSanders wrote:As an aside, Jan-Krzysztof Duda from Poland also played, and scored 6.5. He is a FIDE U12.

As a parent of a promising player in Duda's age group I have found the ECF junior approach actively hostile to any ambition to play in strong tournaments or attain a high FIDE rating. Children from other nations are meanwhile achieving a level of excellence many years in advance of their English contemporaries. It has been uncomfortable to have to explain to a child that we can't see how he can achieve his potential within the ECF junior programme.

What is more, the policy which Mr Sanders rightly criticises actively continued in the ECF congress at Canterbury with the barring of U18s from the U21 British title and of U15s from the U16 title, both breaking long standing traditions. I haven't checked whether the same policy was applied to the U14 and U12 championships.

Was the Home Chess Director or any other leading congress official consulted on these controversial changes and do they/did they approve

Leonard Barden wrote: What is more, the policy which Mr Sanders rightly criticises actively continued in the ECF congress at Canterbury with the barring of U18s from the U21 British title and of U15s from the U16 title, both breaking long standing traditions. I haven't checked whether the same policy was applied to the U14, U12 and U10 championships.

The policy only applies to sections in which more than one age-group title is awarded; in a section with only one title at stake, any of the entrants may win it.

This particular issue is one for which there are no less than three commonly-used approaches. Using the scores of the leading U-21s in the British (Griffiths - U-18 - 6½; Ynojosa - U-18 - 6; Jackson - 18-20 - 5½) as an example, these are as follows:

(A) Award U-21 title and U-18 title to Griffiths.
(B) Award U-21 title to Griffiths and U-18 title to Ynojosa.
(C) Award U-21 title to Jackson and U-18 title to Griffiths.

My policy is (A); the British Championship's is (C). When I was a Somerset junior, the policy for the Somerset junior championships was (B).

[quote="LozCooperIt's fortunate that we have the John Robinson Trust and I'm liasing with them to fund what I believe are the right areas.[/quote]


I recommend that the John Robinson Trust, the ECF itself, or one of the prospective sponsors cj has enlisted for the Staunton dinner, offer cash prizes of, say, £5000 and £2000 for the first English player not already holding these titles to become a GM/IM/WGM/WIM by age 19 (GM/WGM) or 16 (IM/WIM).

At present we don't have a single holder of these titles younger than Howell and Corke, and I believe only one player (Yang-Fan Zhou) with an IM norm. A glance at the Fide national top 100s lists suggests virtually every other strong chess country in Western Europe, let alone Eastern Europe, does better than us.

The rationale for these proposed awards is that the Slater grandmaster awards of 1973 worked brilliantly, and that something similar is needed now so that talented juniors and their families have a specific financial incentive to compensate for the horrific costs of representing England overseas.

Leonard Barden wrote:

PaulSanders wrote:As an aside, Jan-Krzysztof Duda from Poland also played, and scored 6.5. He is a FIDE U12.

As a parent of a promising player in Duda's age group I have found the ECF junior approach actively hostile to any ambition to play in strong tournaments or attain a high FIDE rating. Children from other nations are meanwhile achieving a level of excellence many years in advance of their English contemporaries. It has been uncomfortable to have to explain to a child that we can't see how he can achieve his potential within the ECF junior programme.

What is more, the policy which Mr Sanders rightly criticises actively continued in the ECF congress at Canterbury with the barring of U18s from the U21 British title and of U15s from the U16 title, both breaking long standing traditions. I haven't checked whether the same policy was applied to the U14 and U12 championships.

Was the Home Chess Director or any other leading congress official consulted on these controversial changes and do they/did they approve?

There was some discussion of this in, I think, the British Championship 2010 thread - Stewart Reuben mainly expressing his strong opposition to the policy.