2018 World Cadet Championship!

The 2018 World Cadet Championships (WCC) just finished, taking place in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, from November 4-15. The tournament, organized by the International Chess Federation, FIDE, drew a record number 851 kids from 86 different countries!

Many kids had to qualify to be there, so this was the best of the best!

 
A view of the playing hall (Photo & main image courtesy of FIDE).

The WCC is an 11-round tournament with six individual championships taking place, with sections by age: Open Under 8, Open Under 10, Open Under 12, and Girls Under 8, Girls Under 10, Girls Under 12. The winners of each section are declared World Champions, and hold that title for one year, or until the next World Cadet Championships take place.

There were about 70 players representing the United States, and overall the U.S. National Youth Team did quite well, earning four medals by the following players:

Yuvraj Chennareddy - GOLD Medal - Open Under 8
WCM Evelyn Qiao - BRONZE Medal - Girls Under 8
Erick Zhao - SILVER Medal - Open Under 10
FM Nico Chasin - BRONZE Medal - Open Under 12

America's biggest star was Yuvraj 'Raj' Chennareddy, who started amazingly with 9/9 (!) before drawing in Round 10 and winning in Round 11 to finish with an astonishing 10.5/11. He clear first place, as you might guess!

Raj Chennareddy, World Champion Under 8 (Photo: Grant Oen).

Raj did not come into the section as a rating favorite, but played with great energy and maturity in each game, always taking his time to look for the best moves.

One of his best wins came in Round 8, where he played great positional chess to show how a pair of knights could outplay a pair of bishops (watch a ChessKid video on that topic here!). Pay special attention starting from Black's 18th move, then look at the position just 10 moves later:

WCM Evelyn Qiao had a great tournament experience in the Girls Under 8 section. She drew in Round 1 to an unrated player from China, Yunqing Zhao, which at first seemed like a disappointment, but less so when it turned out that Yunqing went on to win the tournament with 9.5/11!

Evelyn then lost in Round 3 to Veronica Iudina from Russia, who went on to take second place in the section with 9/11. But Evelyn then scored 7 out of 8 in the final rounds to earn clear third place with 8.5/11!

Evelyn Qiao, Bronze Medalist Girls Under 8 (Photo: Grant Oen).

One of Evelyn's best wins came in the final round, where she grabbed the initiative from the opening and never looked back: