8 Americans Boast Top Ten Finishes in 2026 FIDE World Cadet Cup

The 2026 FIDE World Cadet Cup was held June 15 through 28 in Batumi, Georgia. 662 players competed across the six sections (Under-12, Under-10, and Under-8 Open and Girls).

The USA delegation consisted of 23 chessplayers and was led by Head of Delegation IM Armen Ambartsoumian. Eight of these 23 players finished in the top 10 of their respective section.

Photo courtesy Tianyu Li

While no Americans medaled, Kai Zhou Lan (Under-10 Open) tied for second, finishing fifth on tiebreaks, while Varun Karthik Turaga (Under-8 Open) tied for third, finishing fourth on tiebreaks.

Under-12 Open

In the Under-12 Open, FM Marc Llari of France won gold with a 9/11 score, a half-point ahead of three players.

The top American finishers were CM Chenxuan Ling and Sriansh Katta, who each scored 7/11 points to finish in a tie for 15^th out of 118 participants (finishing 22^nd and 23^rd, respectively, on tiebreaks).

Three more Americans competed in this section: Lev Shangin, FM Vivan Prakash Mulay, and Nakshwin Mehta. Shangin finished 26^th with a 6½/11 score, while Mulay and Mehta scored 5/11 and 3½/11, respectively. Illustrating the strength of the field, Mehta gained 28 points for his performance.

Under-12 Girls

In the Under-12 Girls, India’s WCM Divi Bijesh won gold with her 9/11 score, a half-point ahead of two players tied for second.

American WCM Elizabeth Zhou tied for fourth with an 8/11 score, finishing sixth on tiebreaks. Zhou entered 12^th by FIDE rating and gained 82 points for her very strong performance.

Zhou put up quite a fight in her game against Bijesh:

One of her other losses was even closer, and the hard-to-find solution to her opening problems is too pretty not to share:

Of Zhou’s many wins, this one was my favorite due to her relentlessly logical play:

And welcome to Luna He, who also played her first international competition!

Under-10 Open

In the Under-10 Open, three Americans finished in the top 10.

Kai Zhou Lan entered as the 40^th seed out of 150 competitors, but finished in a tie for second with an 8½/11 score, only a half-point behind Kazakhstan’s CM Rizat Ulan. Lan ended up fifth on tiebreaks and gained 140 FIDE rating points for his impressive performance.

CM Aiden Linyuan Li and Mehmet Yilanli each scored 8/11 to finish in a tie for sixth place (finishing sixth and eighth, respectively, on tiebreaks). Li entered as the second seed, and even defeated the only higher-rated player in Round 9, but two losses in the second half of the tournament put the podium out of reach.

Yilanli entered with a misleadingly low FIDE rating for a two-time national champion, and was seeded only 52. But, with a 2115 performance, he added 182 points to his 1772 international rating.

Jordan Kim — the fourth and final American in this section — also vastly outperformed his FIDE rating, gaining 50 points for a 4½/11 score in a tough field.

Photo courtesy of FIDE

Under-10 Girls

In the Under-10 Girls, China’s WCM Zhihan Chen and Kazakhstan’s Alisha Bissaliyeva tied for first with 9/11 scores, and Chen took gold on tiebreaks.

WCM Abigail Zhou was the top-scoring American, finishing in a tie for seventh with a 7½/11 score (ninth on tiebreaks). Zhou played some of the most demanding, back-and-forth games of anybody in the tournament. The losses were heartbreaking, but the wins were quite satisfying:

WCM Allyson Yu finished with a 7/11 score, and WCM Elizabeth Xia scored 6½/11. Angela Zixi Wang also scored 6½/11, gaining 34 rating points. The final American player, Loida Guo, scored 6/11, meaning every American in this section finished with a plus-score.

Under-8 Open

In the Under-8 Open, China’s Yuxin Xiu won gold with a 9½/11 score, a half-point ahead of Russia’s Vladimir Sergeev. China’s Ruike Zhang and USA’s Varun Karthik Turaga tied for third with 8½/11 scores, but Zhang took the bronze medal on tiebreaks.

Turaga entered as the 10^th highest-rated player and gained rating for outperforming his seed. His back-and-forth Sicilian victory in the penultimate round was particularly entertaining and impressive. It’s rare players this young can out-defend their opponent:

Three other Americans competed in this section. Of them, Aiden Huang and Jonathan Dai each scored 6½/11 points, and Jayaditya Reddy Pittu scored 6/11.

Under-8 Girls

In the Under-8 Girls, China’s Yunjin Sun won gold with a 9½/11 score, a full point ahead of her compatriot Xinhe Ye, who won silver on tiebreaks ahead of India’s Singh Saiaastha. American Irene Lin tied for fourth with an 8/11 score, finishing fifth on tiebreaks. Below is one of Lin’s several aggressive, attacking victories:

Two more Americans competed in this section. Hanwen Lu scored 7½/11 to tie for ninth place (10^th on tiebreaks) as the 22^nd seed, gaining 96 points for her performance. Below is an instructive game of Lu’s that shows the power of keeping high-potential pieces on the board:

Finally, Beatrix Mathilde Sage Howison scored 2/11 in her first international tournament. Welcome to international chess, Beatrix!

And More!

The World Cup in Chess Solving was held on June 22, attracting 236 solvers from 48 countries, including 10 Americans.

Four Americans made top 10 finishes: Jayaditya Reddy Pittu (Under-8 Open, T-7^th), Lan Kai Zhou (Under-10 Open, T-5^th), CM Chenxuan Ling (Under-12 Open, T-6^th), and WCM Abigail Zhou (Under-10 Girls, T-4^th). The results for all six sections can be found here.

Photo courtesy of FIDE

For those interested, the problems (and solutions) for all six sections can be downloaded here.

For more on this tournament, do check out the official website. In addition to round-by-round recaps, you can also learn more about what the players did on their rest day, such as this trip to a dolphinarium.