Last-Round Win Nets GM Antipov World Junior Title

It took 13 rounds and three tiebreaks, but eventually Russian GM Mikhail Antipov won the 2015 FIDE World Junior Under-20 Championship on his home turf. Polish GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda, who had been in sole possession of first for the last week (!) could only draw his last game and got clipped at the wire at the Ugra Chess Academy in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia.

More surprising was the girls section. WFM Nataliya Buksa of Ukraine vaulted 22 places from her pre-tournament ranking to win the 2015 FIDE World Junior Under-20 Girls title. By rule, she earned with WGM title in the process.

Antipov and Duda finished tied with 10.0/13 and had to go to three tiebreaks to decide the gold medal. According to the regulations, the first tiebreak was head-to-head. Since the two players drew in round eight, the arbiter moved on to Buchholz (cut one). This meant each player was awarded the sum of the final score of the opponents.

Amazingly, both players ended up precisely on 96 points, despite Antipov losing a game and Duda going unbeaten!

The tertiary method was needed, whereby the excised score was added back, and this allow Antipov to win by a mere point (103.0-102.0). After a fortnight of play with only one rest day, Duda's round-four opponent, a 6.0 point-scorer, cost him the title. Antipov's lowest-scoring opponent garnered 7.0 points. Still, that's perhaps better than going to the fourth tiebreak -- most turns with Black!

Here's the gilded game for Antipov. Black had a firm hold on the position and went for direct action beginning with 29...e3. Somehow White survived and then punished Black for giving away control of the e-file.

Meanwhile GM Benjamin Bok was doing most of the pressing in the round-13 endgame and Duda could only hold the position for a draw.

Antipov gave himself a chance to win by taking some risks. In round 12, he must have decided he needed to go 2-0 in the last two games. He chose the Blumenfeld Gambit and showed his class with 17...Rxa3! which allowed him to acquire two passed pawns for the exchange, after which he was firmly in control.

He also played another fun one the previous round. Both kings reached their third rank with queens on the board, but Antipov had the initiative. He thus went 2-0 versus the Caro-Kann late in the tournament.

It would be a shame to not include at least one effort from the silver medalist. The Berlin Airlift lasted 11 months, but in round nine, GM Nijat Abasov's Berlin Defense lasted only 25 moves. See if you can "do a Duda":

Here's the full game:

German GM Matthias Bluebaum took the bronze with 9.0/13. Third-seeded GM Karen Grigoryan, sole leader after our previous report, dropped well off the pace after beating Antipov in round five. He won only three points from his final eight games to end up 15th.

This was Russia's third player to win the title since the country gained independence and it breaks a two-year run of Chinese winners (GM Yu Yangyi in 2013 and GM Lu Shanglei in 2014). Previously, GM Dmitry Andreikin won in 2010 as did GM Alexandr Galkin in 1999. China only sent one player this year; IM Bai Jinshi finished 30th.

In the girls section, Buksa played higher-rated opponents in 11 of the 13 rounds, finishing with 10.0/13 like the winning boys. She gained 88 rating points in the process while getting the WGM title.

Her final round was a roller coaster. Despite only needing a draw to wrap up at least a share of the lead, she played on rather than go for a repetition. This may have been due to the tiebreaks again -- Buksa lost her head-to-head game with the girl chasing her by a half-point, so her tiebreaks would always be worse.

In the end, she nearly got herself mated, then went from being up a few pawns to behind, but held on and avoided the obvious blunder 85. a8=Q? which would have lead to a "Searching for Bobby Fischer" type ending.

It's again prudent to show off one of Buksa's wins. She did after all have seven wins in eight games from rounds 3-10. Here's the cake topper from that run: you don't often see dueling batteries on the second rank, nor to do you see the double battery topping the triple battery! Especially pleasing is the quiet move that forces resignation.

The two winners chat at the closing press conference. | Photo Maria Emelionova.

A few players can now look back on their decisions of which event to play. As previously reported, WGM Aleksandra Goryachkina chose to play in the Open section instead of trying to win a third girls title -- she finished in 34th with a performance rating about 100 points below her FIDE rating.

Peruvian GM Jorge Cori must have really wanted the title. He played in the World Junior instead of the World Cup, whose dates overlap, despite being guaranteed less money. First place in the World Junior was 3,000 Euro ($3,400 USD). Losers of the first round of the World Cup received $4,800 USD. 

Cori finished a disappointing 26th despite being the second-highest rated. 

2015 FIDE World Junior Under-20 Championship | Final Standings (Top 20)

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2015 FIDE World Junior Under-20 Girls Championship | Final Standings (Top 19)