Girish and Hovhannisyan lead World Junior Championship

At the World U-20 Alex Rombaldoni started with six consecutive wins and a draw, before losing his first game today. In Chennai, India the Italian IM is now half a point behind FM (!) Koushik Girish (India) and GM Robert Hovhannisyan (Armenia), who are on 7/8. WGMs Olga Girya (Russia) and Deysi Cori (Peru) share the lead in the Girls section with the same score.

Ivan Salgado Lopez vs Kacper Piorun at the World Juniors | Photo © official website

The 50th World Junior and 29th Junior Girls Championships are taking place August 1-16 in Chennai, India. A total of 18 GMs are participating, the highest rated being Maxim Matlakov (RUS, 2632), Sanan Sjugirov (RUS, 2629), Ivan Salgado Lopez (ESP, 2626), Aleksandr Shimanov (RUS, 2586), Tamir Nabaty (ISR, 2584) and Ray Robson (USA, 2560). In the Girls section the top three in the starting list are Nazi Paikidze (GEO, 2416), Anastasia Savina (RUS, 2398) and Cori T Deysi (PER, 2376).

Among the previous winners are Borislav Ivkov (who won the first edition in 1951), Boris Spassky, Anatoly Karpov, Garry Kasparov and Viswanathan Anand. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov won it in both 2003 and 2005; two years ago Maxime Vachier-Lagrave took gold in Argentina. Since 1982 there is a separate tournament for girls U-20. The first winner was Agnieszka Brustman of Poland. Former World Champion Zhu Chen from China (now Qatar, after being married with Mohammed Al-Modiahki) also won the Girls U-20 Championship. Last year the winners were Dmitry Andreikin and Anna Muzychuk.

Italian IM Alex Rombaldoni started with a superb 6/6 and was obviously in sole first place by then. We received the following email from Adolivio Capece:

I hope you can emphasize in your reports the result of the young Italian, running for the title and the final GM norm. For Italy it is a wonderful surprise! Axel is the younger brother of Denis, IM too, and the son of Andrea, an Italian Master who, when young, was one of the most promising Italian players. Axel qualified a few weeks ago for the final of the Italian Championship that will be played in November in the town of Perugia.

In the seventh round Rombaldoni drew with Armenian GM Samvel Ter-Sahakyan and only today he suffered his first loss, against another strong Armenian GM: Robert Hovhannisyan.



However, for the Italian the tournament is already a success. The official website mentions that he has already secured his third GM norm over nine rounds (with a current performance of 2703, a loss against GM Dariusz Swiercz of Poland tomorrow probably doesn't matter anymore). Local hero Koushik Girish, who scored his first GM norm, is sharing the lead with Hovhannisyan with five rounds to go.

Selection of games rounds 1-7 (8 not yet available)

Game viewer by ChessTempo

World Junior Championship 2011 | Round 8 Standings (top 30)

Rk.	Ti.	Name	Fed	Rtg	Pts	TB1	TB2	TB3	Perf
1	FM	Girish A Koushik	IND	2309	7.0	2452	2522	2541	2732
2	GM	Hovhannisyan Robert	ARM	2556	7.0	2393	2416	2441	2708
3	IM	Rombaldoni Axel	ITA	2459	6.5	2505	2563	2573	2703
4	GM	Ter-Sahakyan Samvel	ARM	2558	6.5	2464	2480	2501	2690
5	GM	Salgado Lopez Ivan	ESP	2626	6.0	2464	2479	2495	2635
6	GM	Swiercz Dariusz	POL	2553	6.0	2424	2452	2468	2595
7	GM	Durarbeyli Vasif	AZE	2515	6.0	2386	2399	2411	2558
8	GM	Adhiban B	IND	2542	6.0	2342	2361	2384	2492
9	IM	Vidit Santosh Gujrathi	IND	2492	5.5	2519	2557	2607	2618
10	GM	Robson Ray	USA	2560	5.5	2428	2438	2451	2546
11	IM	Urkedal Frode	NOR	2448	5.5	2391	2430	2457	2501
12	GM	Martinovic Sasa	CRO	2521	5.5	2368	2392	2398	2474
13	GM	Grandelius Nils	SWE	2542	5.5	2355	2365	2377	2481
14	IM	Shyam Sundar M	IND	2478	5.5	2260	2277	2296	2388
15	IM	Piorun Kacper	POL	2514	5.0	2488	2512	2535	2548
16	IM	Huschenbeth Niclas	GER	2521	5.0	2483	2508	2533	2544
17		Narayanan S L	IND	2233	5.0	2466	2476	2486	2550
18	IM	Firat Burak	TUR	2373	5.0	2437	2485	2541	2488
19		Swayams Mishra	IND	2378	5.0	2436	2490	2551	2477
20	FM	Getz Nicolai	NOR	2385	5.0	2436	2490	2549	2476
21	GM	Nabaty Tamir	ISR	2584	5.0	2433	2443	2457	2510
22	GM	Rasulov Vugar Ural Oglu	AZE	2522	5.0	2423	2455	2477	2483
23	GM	Matlakov Maxim	RUS	2632	5.0	2423	2444	2463	2469
24	IM	Grover Sahaj	IND	2496	5.0	2422	2442	2462	2488
25	GM	Shimanov Aleksandr	RUS	2586	5.0	2417	2439	2452	2491
26	IM	Lalith Babu M R	IND	2495	5.0	2402	2430	2452	2470
27	FM	Kovalev Vladislav	BLR	2439	5.0	2400	2443	2473	2462
28	GM	Sjugirov Sanan	RUS	2629	5.0	2393	2410	2430	2472
29	GM	Sethuraman S P	IND	2529	5.0	2373	2394	2411	2450
30	IM	Roganovic Milos	SRB	2476	5.0	2353	2381	2411	2421

Links

• Official website
• Details at Chess Results
• Games in PGN: Open | Girls via TWIC