2025 FIDE World Youth Chess Championship: Das, Sinkar Shine for USA Delegation

22 American players made the trip to Durres, Albania to compete on behalf of the USA Delegation at the 2025 FIDE World Youth Chess Championships from October 4 through 15.

Courtesy of US Chess

In contrast to last month’s World Cadets Chess Championship, no Americans made podium finishes. But no player entered in the top 10 (by FIDE rating) of their respective section (Under-14, -16, and -18 Open and Girls), so this was not totally unexpected. The overlap with the U.S. Chess Championships was also unfortunate, as several of our top juniors opted to compete in St. Louis.

FM Aditeya Das (Under-14 Open) and WCM Anagha Aniket Sinkar (Under-14 Girls) both finished in the top 20 (15th and 16th, respectively), with Das boasting the top score of any American player in any section (7½/11). Das’s strong 3/3 finish showed a nice amount of energy, especially given the tactical nature of his Round 9 and, especially, his Round 11 victories:

Sinkar’s 7/11 score was particularly impressive given her strength of competition, as evidenced by her 75-point rating gain for her performance. Her third-round victory against a WFM rated 250 points higher is impressive because of the way Sinkar took control early and never relinquished:

All but six of the Americans competed in the Under-14 Open or Girls section, which is where most of the top scores came from. FM Andrew Jing and Siddharth Singh both posted 7/11 scores in the Under-14 Open, as well. Jing was in contention for a tie for third entering Round 11 on a three-game winning streak, but one miscalculation in a sharp position proved to be too much to recover from.

In the Under-16 Open, FM Stephen Willy also finished with 7/11, and Qi Pang’s 6/11 performance was good for 49 rating points. A last-round win, however, would have netted Pang the FM title, but, surely, that’s not too far off.

All results from the USA delegation can be found here. FIDE’s report on the winners of each section is available here. On the rest day, many players competed in a variant side event known as Dice Chess, which you can read more about at the end of this report. The first batch of tactics from American players in this event was published yesterday, and look for more next week.