FIDE World Youth Recap and World Cadet Preview

The 2024 FIDE World Youth Chess Championship concluded last week in Florianopolis, Brazil, and the 2024 FIDE World Cadet Chess Championship begins today in Montesilvano, Italy. Below is a recap of the former event and preview of the latter.

Photo courtesy Vivian Passig/FIDE

World Youth Recap

16 Americans competed across the six sections of the 2024 FIDE World Youth Chess Championship (WYCC, held October 28 through November 10 in Florianopolis, Brazil.

The event boasted a total of 520 players representing 62 federations vying for championships and direct titles in both Open and Girls sections across three age groups (Under-18, Under-16, and Under-14).

While no Americans finished on the podium in any of the sections, a number of our players had impressive results. The top overall scorer of any American in any section was IM Nico Chasin in the Under-18 Open section, where the 12th-seeded player finished in a tie for fifth place with a 7½/11 score.

Nico Chasin at the 2022 K-12 Grade Championships (photo David Llada)

After a first-round upset loss, Chasin reeled off five straight victories culminating in a victory over strong IM Harsh Suresh of India to reach a tie for second.

From there, consecutive losses against eventual silver medalist IM Aldiyar Ansat (Kazakhstan) and IM Augustin Droin (France) saw Chasin fall back in the standings. His instructive loss against Droin is below.

With only the top four boards from each round being broadcast, we are not able to see Chasin's ninth- and tenth-round wins over FM Ajay Santhosh (India) and Diego Flores Quillas (Peru).

Vemparala (L) finished first on tiebreaks in the 2024 National Middle School (K-8) Championship earlier this year (photo Caroline King)

Three more Americans saw massive positive swings to their FIDE ratings: CMs Nikash Vemparala and Aditeya Das in the Under-14 Open and Dhanvi Namala in the Under-14 Girls. Namala, rated 1655 before the event, gained 96 points for her 5½/11 score. Each boasting 7/11 scores, Das (1961) gained 123 points and Vemparala (2004) gained 141 points.

Vemparala — the reigning National Middle School Co-Champion — raced off to a 7/9 score capped off with an upset victory in a fantastically complex rook endgame against China's Haochen Jiang (2315):

A tenth-round loss to eventual co-champion IM Edgar Mamedov (Kazakhstan) ended Vemparala's hopes of an upset podium finish. He came close to holding a draw against IM Pawel Sowinski in round 11, but the Polish player's tactics were too strong:

Again, because only the top four boards in each section were broadcast, we do not have any of Das's or Namala's games. After a loss to eventual co-champion FM Sauat Nurgaliyev (Kazakhstan) in round seven, Das had a strong finish including victories over Ethan Chua (Netherlands, 2137) and countryman FM Vedant Talwalkar (2120). Namala boasted three victories against players with FIDE ratings over 1800, also drawing three higher-rated players.

All results from the tournament can be found on Chess-Results.

World Cadet Preview

While other junior tournaments also include sections for younger age groups, the WYCC is a separate event from the FIDE World Cadet Chess Championship (WCCC). This year, the WCCC is in Montesilvano, Italy with play beginning today, November 15.

At the time of writing, 46 Americans are registered for the WCCC across the six sections (Open and Girls Under-12, Under-10, and Under-8).

In the Girls Under-8 section, five of the ten highest-rated participants represent USA, including 2024 Pan-American Youth Championship gold medalist WCM Abigail Zhou. In the Girls Under-12 section, WFM Laurie Qiu will enter as the highest-rated player.

Games can be followed live on Lichess and Chess.com daily at 8:15 a.m. CST.