World Youth Tracker Rd 8

Temple of Poseidon, ancient Greek god of the sea. Photo by Ted Castro.

Team USA Statistics
(Updated after Round 8)

• 129 players (76 boys + 53 girls)
• Round 6 :: 73.5 = 57%
• Round 7 :: 63.0 = 49%
• Round 8 :: 68.0 = 53%
• Rounds 1-5 :: 368.0 = 57% 
• Rounds 6-8 :: 204.5 = 53%
• Score 7.0 = 1
• Score 6.5 = 4
• Score 6.0 = 5
• Score 5.5 = 14
• Score 5.0 = 25
• Score 4.5 = 26
  
• Average = 4.4 / 8

After a week of intense chess in Halkidiki, several American medal hopefuls hit the proverbial wall in rounds 7 and 8.  Is it homesickness or exhaustion?  Irrespective, three more rounds remain, just enough time to get back on track and finish strong.  One player who stayed on track is Justin Wang of Texas, co-leader of Open U10 with 7.0 out of 8.  Tomorrow, he faces the other co-leader, a kid from Poland.  Aside from Justin, the best medal chances for Team USA lie in U12, both Open and Girls.  Indeed, six of the top 10 scores come from this age group, including three of the four 6.5s.  Bay Area readers will recognize two of the 6.5s: NM Andrew Hong (U12) and Aghilan Nachiappan (U8).  The other two are Massachusetts master Carissa Yip (Girls U12) and Aydin Turgut (U12) of Illinois.   


Top Individual Results
(Updated after Round 8) 

• Open U18
  • Aaron Grabinsky (2194) 4.5
  • FM Christopher Wu (2324) 4.5
• Open U16
  • FM Cameron Wheeler (2356) 5.5
• Open U14
  • CM Jacob Furfine (2174) 5.5
  • FM Nicolas Checa (2437) 5.0
  • FM Rayan Taghizadeh (2240) 5.0
  • FM David Brodsky (2251) 5.0
  • Brandon Nydick (2160) 5.0
• Open U12
  
  • Aydin Turgut (1884) 6.5 in 3rd place
  • Andrew Hong (2136) 6.5 in 5th place
  • Hans Niemann (2046) 6.0 in 6th place
  • CM David Peng (2231) 6.0 
  • FM Awonder Liang (2365) 5.5
  • Kevin Yang (1904) 5.0
  • Justin Paul (1926) 5.0
  • Akira Nakada (1831) 5.0
    
• Open U10
  • Justin Wang (2046) 7.0 in 1st place
  • Anthony He (1820) 6.0
  • CM Arthur Guo (2073) 5.5
  • Rohun Trakru (1517) 5.5
  • Jason Wang (2040) 5.5
  • CM Maximilliam Lu (1844) 5.5 
  • Benjamin Medina (1826) 5.0
  • CM Chinguun Bayaraa (1893) 5.0
  • Jason Yu (1565) 5.0
  • Nathaniel Shuman (1680) 5.0
  • Daniel Hung (1538) 5.0
• Open U8
  • CM Aghilan Nachiappan (unrated) 6.5 in 5th place
  • Adi Murgescu (unrated) 5.5
  • Vishnu Vanapalli (unrated) 5.5
  • Lucas Foerster-Yialamas (1687) 5.5  
  • James Oh (unrated) 5.0
• Girls U18
  • WCM Apurva Virkud (2027) 5.0
• Girls U16
  • WIM Agata Bykovtsev (2117) 6.0 in 4th place       
  • WIM Ashritha Eswaran (2207) 5.0 
• Girls U14
  • WIM Annie Wang (2087) 5.0
  • WCM Sasha Konavolenko (1670) 5.0
  • Jie Tianhui (1792) 5.0
  • WFM Joanna Liu (1857) 5.0 
  • WCM Priya Trakru (1780) 5.0
• Girls U12
  • Carissa Yip (2007) 6.5 in 2nd place
  • WFM Martha Samadashvili (1711) 6.0 
  • WCM Naomi Bashkansky (1609) 5.0
• Girls U10
  • Rochelle Wu (unrated) 5.5
  • WCM Nastassja Matus (1761) 5.5
  • Rianne Ke (1392) 5.5
  • WCM Aksithi Eswaran (1473) 5.5 
  • WCM Anh Nguyen (1462) 5.0
  • Annapoorni Meiyappan (1246) 5.0
• Girls U8
  • Maya Behura (unrated) 5.0
    
  • Allyson Wong (unrated) 5.0

N.B. All ratings above are FIDE.  Includes players with a score of plus-2 or higher.  Players ranked by tiebreaks at official standings.  Bay Area in orange.  Check back for periodic updates.