Irene Fei Wins Gold at FIDE Pan-American School Chess Championship

Players from 19 federations across the Americas competed in the 2024 FIDE Pan-American School Chess Championship, held October 12 through 19 in Asunción, Paraguay. While only three players from the United States traveled to the capital city, they returned with two gold medals (one in the classical event, and one in the rapid event).

WCM Irene Fei, from Iowa, won the Under-13 Girls section as the top-rated player despite only being 11 years old. The victory earned her the WFM title and will make her the youngest WFM in the Americas.

Full results from the tournament can be found here, as can a handful of games from the early rounds of the tournament. Of those games, Fei's roller-coaster of a victory in round three is easily this author's favorite:

Pennsylvania's Tariq Yue and Florida's Nathan Mintz — both competing in the Under-13 Open section — were the only other players representing USA. Yue finished in a tie for fifth with a 6/9 score just a half-point behind the third-place finisher. Mintz entered the event with a 1552 FIDE rating and, thanks to his 5½/9 score, gained over 80 FIDE rating points from his strong performance. The results for this section can be found here.

Yue, who is also only 11 years old, competed in the Under-11 section for the rapid event, earning a gold medal there, as well.

Below are highlights from the early rounds of both Yue and Mintz's events.

While Mintz was unable to convert the attack in his first-round game against an opponent rated several hundred points higher, he was clearly under-rated and it's no surprise he won the bulk of his remaining games playing like this.

Yue has been a regular on the top boards of National Elementary School (K-3 and K-5) tournaments for a while now, and his strong positional understanding was on display as he dismantled his opponent's aggressive King's Indian Defense in this game from round three: