Hunting for Medals in Greece

One of four tournament rooms in Porto Carras.  Many girls play chess!

As the World Youth Championships enters the home stretch, the battle for the trophies reached a climax.  After nine rounds, 3 players are currently in medal position and up to 11 others have a chance with a strong finish.  In most sections, a final score of 8.5 or 9.0 will be required to reach the podium.  The best hopes for Team USA lie in the U12 category, both Open and Girls.  Indeed, NMs Andrew Hong and Carissa Yip have played among the leaders throughout the championships.  Can they finish the deal?  Other medal hopes lie with WIM Agata Bykovtsev in Girls U16 and NM Justin Wang in Open U10.  Good luck to all!

The penultimate round has already begun.  The final round starts bright and early on Thursday:  10AM in Greece or midnight in California.  Check out the live games online!  Hundreds of photos are available for viewing at Chessdom and Flickr.

Unfortunately, I am traveling for the next week with little internet access.  I leave early tomorrow, before the last round begins.  Readers will need to find the final results elsewhere.  
 

Team USA Medal Contenders
(Updated after Round 9)
(Round 10 results in blue)

• Open U18
  • none
• Open U16
  • FM Cameron Wheeler 6.0 in 17th place -- drew
• Open U14
  • FM Nicolas Checa 6.0 in 16th place -- WON 
  • FM Rayan Taghizadeh 6.0 in 18th place -- drew
• Open U12
  • Andrew Hong 7.5 in 3rd place -- lost
  • Hans Niemann 7.0 in 5th place -- lost
  • CM David Peng 7.0 in 10th place -- WON
  • Aydin Turgut 6.5 in 11th place -- lost
  • FM Awonder Liang 6.5 in 12th place -- WON
• Open U10
  • Justin Wang 7.0 in 4th place -- drew
  • CM Arthur Guo 6.5 in 13th place -- drew
  • Anthony He 6.5 in 14th place -- drew
  • Rohun Trakru 6.5 in 15th place -- drew
• Open U8
  • CM Aghilan Nachiappan 6.5 in 8th place -- lost
  • Adi Murgescu 6.5 in 9th place -- WON
  • Vishnu Vanapalli 6.5 in 10th place -- WON
  • Lucas Foerster-Yialamas 6.5 in 11th place -- lost 
  • James Oh 6.0 in 17th place -- lost
• Girls U18
  • none
• Girls U16
  • WIM Agata Bykovtsev 7.0 in 3rd place -- WON       
  • WIM Ashritha Eswaran 6.0 in 11th place -- drew 
• Girls U14
  • none
• Girls U12
  • Carissa Yip 7.5 in 2nd place -- WON
  • WFM Martha Samadashvili 7.0 in 6th place -- drew
• Girls U10
  • Rochelle Wu 6.5 in 8th place -- lost
  • WCM Nastassja Matus 6.5 in 9th place -- drew 
  • Rianne Ke 6.5 in 11th place -- WON
  • WCM Aksithi Eswaran 6.0 in 19th place -- WON 
• Girls U8
  • Maya Behura 6.0 in 19th place -- WON

N.B. Includes only players in Top 20 of standings after Round 9.  Players ranked by the official tiebreaks.  Bay Area representatives in orange.