ChessKid.com Youth Speed Chess Championship Coming This Summer
Palo Alto, Calif., February 26, 2020—Adding to the tremendous success of the Chess.com Speed Chess Championship and Junior Speed Chess Championship, ChessKid.com is announcing the first-ever ChessKid Youth Speed Chess Championship for Summer, 2020. Like its predecessors, the event will feature a series of one-on-one matches, but the field will be comprised of the top youth players in the world aged 10 and under.
The total prize fund is $5000, and the winner will also receive private lessons with a world top-20 player (to be determined later, depending on the language preference of the winning child).
The championship will have eight of the top young prodigies in the world. Like its forebears, the ChessKid Youth Speed Chess Championship will have participants face off in a cycle of blitz chess. Matches will be two hours long and will be decided by 5+1 and 3+1 time controls.
Quarterfinals will take place July 11-12, 2020. The semifinals will be July 18-19, 2020, and the finals will be the weekend of July 25. Exact match times will be determined based on the schedules of the youths.
Here are the six confirmed players thus far. Classical ratings and ages are as of the December, 2019 FIDE rating list.
- Marco Materia, France (10 years old, 2320)
- Tihon Chernyaev, Ukraine (9 years old, 2151)
- Ryo Chen, USA (10 years old, 1978)
- CM Shreyas Royal, England (10 years old, 1941)
- CM Santiago Lopez Rayo, Colombia (10 years old, 1936)
- CM Brewington Hardaway, USA (10 years old, 1904)
- WCM Rachael Li, USA (9 years old, 1890)
- Tani Adewumi, USA (9 years old, 1730)
All matches will be broadcast on Chess.com/TV with ChessKid's own FunMasterMike as one of the scheduled commentators.
Each match will have the following rules and format:
- Each player must maintain his/her own connection to the ChessKid.com live site and provide a webcam for the broadcast. There are also no "takebacks" for any kind of mouseslip.
- All usual Chess.com/ChessKid.com fair play measures will be in place.
- The winner of each match advances to the next round.
- The first 75 minutes will be 5+1, and the final 45 minutes will be 3+1.
- If match is tied after the last 3+1 game, a tiebreak of two additional 3+1 matches will occur. If still tied after two 3+1 games, then a single Armageddon game will take place with White taking 5+1 minutes and Black taking 3+1 minutes with Black having draw odds. The player with the higher ChessKid.com fast chess rating (at the start of the match) chooses the color.
The Junior Speed Chess Championship offers the following prizes:
Round 1 (Quarterfinals): 8 players, 4 matches, $2000 prize pool
- Winner: $300 and advance to round 2
- Other player: $200
- Total prizes per match: $500
Round 2 (Semifinals): 4 players, 3 matches, $1500 prize pool
- Winner: $500 and advance to round 3
- Other player: $250
- Total prizes per match: $750
Round 3 (Finals): 2 players, 1 match, $1500 prize pool
- Winner: $1000 and lessons with a top-20 player
- Runner-up: $500
- Total prize: $1500
About ChessKid.com:
ChessKid.com is the world’s largest scholastic chess site, with more than one million kids playing fast chess, doing puzzles, watching videos, and challenging the bots. ChessKid's number one priority is safety. The site also partners with coaches, schools, organizations, and districts around the world to offer a fun learning environment. A special 30-week online curriculum that fosters necessary critical-thinking skills is available to all educators to help allow chess to be taught as an educational subject.
Contact:
FM Mike Klein
ChessKid.com Chief Chess Officer
mike@chesskid.com
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Company Contact and News Accreditation:
- Email: Mike@chess.com
- Phone: 1 (800) 318-2827
- Address: PO Box 60400 Palo Alto, CA 94306
Mike Klein began playing chess at the age of four in Charlotte, NC. In 1986, he lost to Josh Waitzkin at the National Championship featured in the movie "Searching for Bobby Fischer." A year later, Mike became the youngest member of the very first All-America Chess Team, and was on the team a total of eight times. In 1988, he won the K-3 National Championship, and eventually became North Carolina's youngest-ever master. In 1996, he won clear first for under-2250 players in the top section of the World Open. Mike has taught chess full-time for a dozen years in New York City and Charlotte, with his students and teams winning many national championships. He now works at Chess.com as a Senior Journalist and at ChessKid.com as the Chief Chess Officer. In 2012, 2015, and 2018, he was awarded Chess Journalist of the Year by the Chess Journalists of America. He has also previously won other awards from the CJA such as Best Tournament Report, and also several writing awards for mainstream newspapers. His chess writing and personal travels have now brought him to more than 85 countries.
