Qualifiers for 2016 Pan American Youth Chess Championship

Contact: Jerry Nash FIDE Youth Events jnash@uschess.org Cell: 931-787-2756 (CROSSVILLE, TN) The United States Chess Federation is pleased to announce that 12 players have qualified as Official Representatives to represent the United States of America in their age categories at the 2016 Pan American Youth Chess Championship scheduled for July 24-31, 2016, in Montevideo, Uruguay. These players earned this honor by achieving the highest rating in their age and gender categories according to US Chess’s February Ratings Supplement. These players are considered the Official U.S. Representatives in their age groups. In addition, nine players who qualified on the basis of their superior performance in the 2015 Pan American Youth Festival have earned the right to be Personal Rights Representatives of the U.S. Five players also qualified as Personal Rights representatives by winning medals at the 2015 North American Youth Chess Championship. If an Official Representative (listed below) in an age category declines to attend, then the highest rated player (according to the February supplement) in that category who is registered with the US Chess Office by May 3^rd, 2016, will be considered the Official U.S. Representative. The Pan American Youth is an open tournament for players who live in the Americas. Any US Chess member who meets the age requirement for an age group may play. Players must register for the tournament through US Chess. A player’s age for this tournament is his/her age as of January 1, 2016. Only the Official U.S. Representatives and Personal Rights players from the previous Pan American Youth are eligible to receive financial support from US Chess. The link to the US Chess invitation requirements is: http://www.uschess.org/content/view/7865/131/ As the national federation, US Chess completes the registration with the tournament organizers for all U.S. players. For registration and payment details, please contact Jerry Nash at Click here to show email address. Players listed below should contact Mr. Nash immediately to confirm player information. The link to the 2016 Pan American Youth Chess Championship invitation is: http://www.fideamerica.com/index.php/uruguay/9780-xxvii-pan-american-youth-chess-championship-montevideo-2016. Congratulations to the following players who have qualified as the Official U.S. Representatives to the 2016 Pan American Youth Festival!

U-8 Boys – Marvin Gao – FL
U-8 Girls – Rachael Li – TX
U-10 Boys – Arthur Guo – GA
U-10 Girls – Rianne Ke – CA
U-12 Boys – Andrew Hong – CA
U-12 Girls – Nastassja Matus – MN
U-14 Boys – Awonder Liang – WI
U-14 Girls – Akshita Gorti – VA
U-16 Boys – Jeffery Xiong – TX
U-16 Girls – Maggie Feng – OH
U-18 Boys – Akshat Chandra – NJ
U-18 Girls – Apurva Virkud – MI

Team members qualifying by Personal Rights: These players achieved medals at the 2015 Pan American Youth:

Aryeh Shlionsky – NJ
Atreya Vaidya – TX
Marcus Miyasaka – NY
Maya Behura – FL
Aksithi Eswaran – CA
Anh Nguyen – TX
Sanjana Vittal – NJ
Chenyi Zhao – CA
Agata Bykovtsev – CA

The following players also qualify by Personal Rights by achieving gold medals at the 2015 North American Youth (this list has been corrected from an earlier version of this press release)