World Junior U20 Championships Under Way In Khanty-Mansiysk

Five rounds have been played at the World Junior U20 Championships (Open and Girls), currently under way in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. GM Karen Grigoryan leads.

Photo Vladimir Barsky.

The 2015 FIDE World Junior Under-20 Championships (Open and Girls) takes place 31 August-16 September at the Ugra Chess Academy in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. The event is organized by the Ugra Chess Federation under the auspices of the Russian Chess Federation and FIDE.

Both tournaments are very long: 13 rounds! The top groups in Wijk aan Zee have a similar schedule, but they get three rest days. The juniors get only one — but on that day they're probably playing blitz all day anyway.  

This year's World Junior Championship — the Open group — is clearly not the strongest ever held. One reason might be the location: Khanty-Mansiysk. The location where many World Cups were held is not exactly around to corner, and so the flights must be expensive for many.

The Open section has 62 participants. 44 are titled players, 9 of them grandmasters. The top seeds are GMs Jan-Krzysztof Duda (Poland), Jorge Cori (Peru), Karen Grigoryan, (Armenia), Benjamin Bok (Netherlands) and Matthias Bluebaum (Germany).

Interestingly, reigning Russian Women's Champion WGM Aleksandra Goryachkina chose to play in the Open section, where she's #19 on the starting list. In the Girls section there are 46 participants, 34 titled players and three above 2400: WGM Medina Warda Aulia (Indonesia), WGM Dinara Saduakassova and IM Nastassia Ziaziulkina.

For second seeded GM Jorge Cori the trip from Peru to Siberia was very long. He  decided to play the World Junior instead of the World Cup (where his sister took his place), but started with a loss to Vitor Carneiro of Brazil:

Not a great start for Jorge Cori. | Photo Maria Emelianova.

Cori wasn't the only grandmaster who started with a loss. GM Murali Karthikeyan of India came under pressure in a middlegame with opposite-colored bishops, and it was all over when his (untitled!) opponent Shamsiddin Vokhidov of Uzbekistan found something nice. Can you spot it too?

 Both Cori and Karthikeyan faced 2100 players in the second round, and both won. No less than eight of the 11 top boards ended in draws that day.

In the third round GM Karen Grigoryan grabbed sole lead as the only player with three wins behind his name. He was too strong for one of Norway's biggest talents, IM Aryan Tari.

In this encounter between “the Aronian and Carlsen of the new generation,” for 13 moves the players followed a game between.... Aronian and Carlsen! (With reversed colors though.)

Tari was doing very well until he allowed a trick just before the time control:

 A good game by Tari, but a zero nonetheless. | Photo Maria Emelianova.

IM Jorden van Foreest, one of the prize winners in last week's Titled Tuesday tournament, was the first to hold Grigoryan to a draw, but on Sunday the latter duly continued winning.

This was quite an interesting game, especially for 1.e4 players. The Dragon is always a bit frightning, but what happens if you just don't castle, and go for checkmate immediately? Sometimes that works:

Karen Grigoryan leads after five rounds. | Photo Maria Emelianova.

One of the players trailing Grigoryan by half a point is top seed GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda. The Polish rising star refuted an opening mistake by his opponent with the typical e5-e6! pawn sac which paralyzed Black's position for a while. The second half of the game was sheer torture:

GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda. | Photo Maria Emelianova.

2015 World Junior U20 | Round 5 Standings

WGM Aleksandra Goryachkina  is doing so-so. After losing to Dutch GM Benjamin Bok today she is just out of this table, in 21st position, after five rounds. 

In the Girls section, WGM  Zhansaya Abdumalik is still on a perfect score. A surprising name (well, maybe her rating is more surprising here!) can be found in second place, as the only player on 4.5 points: WFM Nataliya Buksa (2199) of Ukraine.

Six more rounds will be played in Khanty-Mansiysk. The rest day is on Wednesday, after round seven.