Cal Kids Strong in South Africa

Inside the Playing Hall

After a very hectic 6 rounds over 4 days, today is the rest day at the World Youth Champs in Durban.  Some participants even took advantage the opportunity for a real African safari!  The chess tournament resumes tomorrow with the leisurely pace of one round per day through Monday.  Follow the top 10 boards in each section LIVE at the official website starting at 7:00am PDT.

Aksithi Eswaran

Team USA continues to score well at 62% overall.  Two girls have staked a 1/2 point lead in their respective sections, and a third player finds himself in a tie for first.  Three more guys share second place at the midpoint of the event.  Congratulations to Aksithi (G8), Jennifer (G12), Rayan (B12), Rohum (B8), Andrew (B10) and Christopher (B16)!  By my count, 14 juniors occupy the Top 10 in their section, and nearly half (34 of 70) currently have a score of 4.0 or more.  Of course, a lot can happen over the final 5 rounds.

The 7 CalChess representatives have contributed well to the statistics espoused in the previous paragraph.  Aksithi Eswaran leads Girls-U8 outright while her older sister Ashritha led Girls-U14 before a setback in round 6.  Andrew Hong and Rayan Taghizadeh carry the standard for the guys, both with 5.0 in Boys-U10 and Boy-U12, respectively.  Vignesh Panchanatham stands at 4.0, ready to continue his winning ways after two defeats earlier. Check out his daily blog reports!

Team USA -- Average Score: 3.7 out of 6 (62%).

Boys-U8

• Rohun Trakru 5.0 (tied for 2nd)
• Jason Yu 4.5
• Pranav Prem 4.5

Girls-U8

• Aksithi Eswaran 5.5 (clear 1st) (CalChess)
• Rianne Ke 4.0 - won Round 7

Boys-U10

• Andrew Hong 5.0 (tied for 2nd) (CalChess)
• Aydin Turgut 4.5 - drew Round 7
• Maximillian Lu 4.5

Girls-U10

• Natassja Matus 4.5
• Evelyn Zhu 4.5
• Martha Samadashvili 4.5

Boys-U12

Rayan Taghizadeh

• Rayan Taghizadeh 5.0 (tied for 1st) (CalChess) - drew Round 7
• David Peng 4.5 - won Round 7
• Aravind Kumar 4.5 - won Round 7

Girls-U12

• Jennifer Yu 5.5 (clear 1st) - drew Round 7
  
• Akshita Gorti 4.0 - won Round 7

Boys-U14

• Vignesh Panchanatham 4.0 (CalChess) - won Round 7
• Angel Hernandez-Camen 4.0

Girls-U14

• Ashritha Eswaran 4.5 (CalChess)

Boys-U16

• Christopher Wu 5.0 (tied for 2nd)
• Kapil Chandran 4.0

Girls-U16

• Agata Bykovtsev 4.0 - won Round 7
• Apurva Virkud 4.0 - won Round 7

Boys-U18

• Atulya Shetty 4.0 

Girls-U18

• Jessica Regam 3.5 - won Round 7