World Youth Qualifiers Announced [UPDATED]

CROSSVILLE, TN [UPDATED, MAY 17, 2018] The US Chess Federation is pleased to announce the list of players who have qualified to participate in the 2018 World Youth Chess Championships to be held in Halkidiki, Greece, October 19-31, 2018.  These students earned this honor by achieving the required peak post tournament ratings according to the US Chess April 2018 Rating Supplement.  Additionally, players may qualify as Personal Rights (PR) player by winning a medal at the 2017 World Youth or 2017 Pan American Youth Championships. The top players by rating in each age category are considered the United States Official Representatives by FIDE, the World Chess Federation, but all players may compete in the event as part of the US delegation.  If an Official Representative (listed as OR below) in an age category declines to attend, then the highest rated player (according to the US Chess April 2018 Supplement) in that category who is registered with the US Chess Office by July 16 will be considered the Official U.S. Representative. Details concerning the 2018 World Youth are currently found on the invitation page.  Interested players should contact US Chess FIDE Events Manager Grant Oen (grant.oen@uschess.org) and US Chess Assistant Director of Events Pete Karagianis (pete.karagianis@uschess.org) by July 16 to confirm their participation. Qualified players, listed below, are exempt from US Chess administration fees.  Only the Official U.S. Representatives (OR) and Personal Rights (PR) players from the previous World Youth and Pan American Youth are eligible to receive further financial support from US Chess and/or the organizers.  However, the FIDE World Youth is an open tournament and any US Chess member who meets the age and eligibility requirements may pay their own way to play. The age/gender categories for the World Youth include Open and Girls – Under 14, Under 16, and Under 18. A player’s age for this tournament is his/her age as of January 1, 2018.  The link to the US Chess invitation requirements is: http://www.uschess.org/content/view/7865/131/.  The deadline for players to register with the US Chess office is July 16. Congratulations to all the players who qualified for the 2018 World Youth! Open U18 Qualifiers

• Jeffery Xiong (Texas) – OR
• Samuel Sevian (Massachusetts)
• Ruifeng Li (Texas)
• John Burke (New Jersey)
• Nicolas Checa (New York)
• Craig Hilby (California)
• Joshua Sheng (California)
• Cameron Wheeler (California)
• Zhaozhi Li (Illinois)
• Roland Feng (Washington)
• Bryce Tiglon (Washington)
• John Ludwig (Florida)
• Vignesh Panchanatham (California)
• Alex Bian (Illinois)
• Albert Lu (California)
• Albert Liang (Georgia) – PR

Open U16 Qualifiers

• Awonder Liang (Wisconsin) – OR
• Advait Patel (Oklahoma)
• Praveen Balakrishnan (Virginia)
• David Brodsky (New York)
• Brandon Jacobson (New Jersey)
• Hans Niemann (Connecticut)
• Ben Li (Michigan)
• Rayan Taghizadeh (California)
• David Peng (Illinois)
• Josiah Stearman (California)
• Aravind Kumar (New Jersey)
• Ivan Ke (California)
• Justin Chen (New York)
• Andrew Zheng (Maryland)
• Andrew Titus (Minnesota)
• Trung Nguyen (Virginia)
• Gabriel Sam (California)
• Akira Nakada (New York) – PR
• Kevin Yang (California)
• Justin Paul (Virginia)
• Alexander Costello (California)
• Marcus Miyasaka (New York)

Open U14 Qualifiers

• Andrew Hong (California) – OR
• Justin Wang (Texas)
• Wesley Wang (New York)
• Christopher Yoo (California)
• Anthony He (Washington)
• Nikhil Kumar (Florida)
• Christopher Shen (Ohio)
• Balaji Daggupati (California)
• Arthur Guo (Georgia)
• Andy Huang (Virginia)
• Maximillian Lu (Connecticut)
• Jason Wang (Ohio)
• Vincent Tsay (New York)
• Aydin Turgut (Illinois)
• Anish Vivekananthan (Texas)
• Liran Zhou (New York)
• Robert Shlyakhtenko (California)
• Alex Wang (Pennsylvania)
• Derek Clasby (New Jersey)
• Jason Metpally (Texas)
• Samrug Narayanan (Minnesota)
• Pieter Heesters (Maryland)
• Abhimanyu Mishra (New Jersey) – PR
• Alex Kolay (California)
• Logan Wu (Tennessee)
• Jeffrey Chou (California)
• Daniel Hung (Texas)
• Tan Nguyen (Virginia)

Girls Under 18

• Maggie Feng (Ohio) – OR
• Ashritha Eswaran (California)
• Rachel Ulrich (Wisconsin)
• Devina Devagharan (Texas)
• Julia Sevilla (California)
• Anupama Rajendra (Wisconsin)
• Tianhui (Cindy) Jie (Florida)
• Nancy Wang (New York)
• Queena Deng (California)
• Miranda Liu (Illinois)
• Priya Thakru (Texas)
• Fikirte Hunt (New York)
• Katherine Davis (New Hampshire)
• Saithanusri Avirneni (Georgia)

Girls Under 16

• Jennifer Yu (Virginia) – OR
• Annie Wang (California) – PR
• Carissa Yip (Massachusetts)
• Akshita Gorti (Virginia)
• Emily Nguyen (Texas)
• Thalia Cervantes (Missouri) – PR
• Sophie Morris-Suzuki (New York)
• Sanjana Vittal (New Jersey)
• Joanna Liu (Arizona)
• Naomi Bashkansky (Washington)
• Marissa Li (Illinois)
• Vicki Yang (New York)
• Angelica Chin (New Jersey)
• Cindy Zhang (California)
• Shreya Mangalam (Illinois)
• Sasha Konovalenko (Michigan)
• Camille Kao (Texas)
• Katrina Wong (New York)
• Simona Nayberg (California)
• Chang Xu (Arizona)
• Kimberly Liu (California)
• Sara Herman (Colorado)
• Sana Tan (Utah)
• Meghana Bhanuprasad (Maryland)
• Emily Hu (Pennsylvania)
• Susanna Ulrich (Wisconsin)
• Aria Hoesley (Illinois)
• Vicki Yang (New York)
• Samantha Dong (New York)
• Ashley Xing (Virginia)

Girls Under 14

• Martha Samadashvili (New York) – OR
• Rochelle Wu (California)
• Nastassja Matus (Minnesota)
• Evelyn Zhu (New York)
• Rianna Ke (California)
• Rui Yang Yan (California)
• Ellen Wang (New York)
• Sheena Zeng (Kansas) – PR
• Gracy Prasanna (Pennsylvania)
• Claire Cao (Pennsylvania)
• Yassamin Ehsani (New York) – PR
• Anh Nhu Nguyen (Texas)
• Arya Kumar (North Carolina)
• Iris Zhou (Missouri)
• Minda Chen (Washington)
• Anne-Marie Velea (Washington)
• Shama Yisrael (Florida)
• Aasa Dommalapati (Virginia)
• Ambica Yellamraju (Texas) – PR
• Maya Doron-Repa (New York)
• Shree Ayinala (Texas)
• Annapoorni Meiyappan (California)
• Zoe Zelner (Florida)
• Antara Garai (California)
• Alice Lee (Minnesota)
• Atmika Gorti (Virginia)
• Divya Pandey (Wisconsin)
• Aksithi Eswaran (California)
• Rachel Lee (Texas)
• Iris Mou (New York)
• Ashley Yan (Illinois)
• Sophie Jia-Yu Tien (Washington)
• Kelsey Liu (Massachusetts)
• Sydney Kong (Tennessee)
• Dhriti Iyer (Pennsylvania)
• Joy Cao (Massachusetts)
• Tianna Wang (Massachusetts)
• Nura Baalla (New York)
• Rianne Ke (California)
• Aparna Yellamraju (Texas)
• Charisse Woods (Michigan)
• Katherene Qi (New York)
• Omya Vidyarthi (California)
• Allyson Wong (California)