ChessKid European Team Festival Region 3: Turkey Shines

Region 3 of the monthly ChessKid European Team Festival took place March 26 with the countries of Azerbaijan, Albania, Turkey and Georgia fielding teams of four talented young players. In this friendly format, there were two semifinals and a final round. The winning country would join Latvia and Slovakia in a year-end finals.

Each team fielded players from four different age groups (U8, U10, U12, and U14) and were represented by two boys and two girls.

The first semifinal was between Azerbaijan and Albania and saw Albania win decisively with a 7.0-1.0 score. The second semifinal took place between Turkey and Georgia. The final score was a 6.5-2.5 result that took Turkey to the finals.

At the finals Turkey won over Albania with a 4.5-3.5 score. There was much excitement to this close match but Turkish players were able to get in the final. Just watch this ending which went back and forth until Turkey's oldest player, Ali, found a great skewer to win in the end!

Want to see the replay of all of the action? Click here!

 

Team Turkey: Winners of the Region 3 ChessKid European Team Festival

Turkey will be able to play against other top teams from the ChessKid European Team Festival later this year. In additional, all players for the winning team received free year long ChessKid Gold memberships. The second place team received six month ChessKid Gold memberships, and all other players received three month memberships.

We asked Turkish captain, FIDE Instructor, former national team member Hacer Ayaz about her impression:

The world is going through tough times: climate crisis, pandemic, wars... More than ever, we need to unite, think and act together to make the world a better place. We need to show our children, future generations, that we can unite for the same purpose despite our differences. Chess is perfect for this purpose. In chess, while trying to reach our goal, we reveal ourselves with all our aspects, struggle with discipline to the end, and contribute to the development of our competitors while improving ourselves during all this. Meanwhile, we do not allow competition to get in the way of sportsmanship. Even if we don’t speak the same language, we can communicate on the same board, so we leave the table with new friendships.

Hacer Ayaz: Turkish captain, FIDE Instructor, and former national team member.

It has been a great pleasure for us to participate this event, so I would like to thank chesskid.com and its employees for bringing us together in this valuable organization, to our commentators for allowing us to watch the matches with joy and excitement. I also would like to thank to all competing countries for their participation and sportsmanship. Additionally, I appreciate chesskid.com for being the funniest and most reliable resource in the chess world for the kids. Hope to see you at worldwide organizations.

ChessKid thanks all the captains for their great supprt, as well as guest commentator GM Rashad Babaev, WIM Jesse February and IM, WGM Salome Melia.

ChessKid Friends: WIM Jesse February and GM Rashad Babaev.

By the way during this tournament Salome also had a role of the Georgian captain and here is her feedback:

I'm glad that I was involved in the children’s event. Nowadays, the development of chess level and gaining ranks is even more accelerated in time, so it is very important to interest children in chess from kindergarten and bring them up properly. ChessKid is a very well developed and interesting chess site for children and also for coaches. 

The match was very unpredictable. For me the discovery was a competition of the young generation of Albania with the representatives of strong chess countries.

Today was my debut as a commentator in the children’s tournament. It is difficult to guess their moves and the outcome of the party, which does not determine from the position on the chess board and anything can happen in seconds, but it is very interesting to observe the younger generation and the process of searching for new stars.

I would like to thank the tournament organizers for creating such an interesting project and wish them success in their development of chess.

ChessKid Friends: WIM Jesse February and IM, WGM Salome Melia.

Join us next month as the ChessKid European Team Festival continues! The next match between France, Monaco, Luxembourg and Belgium is scheduled for April 26th.  

See you soon!