ChessKid Youth SCC Opening Round Results
Update! Both ChessKid Youth SCC Semifinals matches will be Saturday, July 24. Catch both at twitch.tv/chesskid or youtube.com/chesskidofficial!Ilan Schnaider vs. Lev Zverev: 8am Pacfic/11am Eastern/12pm Argentina/6pm Moscow (also on twitch.tv/chesskidespanol)
Ryo Chen vs. Tani Adewumi: 11am Pacific/1pm Central/2pm Eastern
The 2021 ChessKid Youth Speed Chess Championship is underway! After a fighting weekend of four opening-round matches, the semifinals are set.
It will be NM vs. NM and CM vs. CM. Top-seeded NM Ryo Chen will face fellow American NM Tani Adewumi, while second-seeded CM Ilan Schnaider of Argentina will take on Russian CM Lev Zverev.
In the first match this past Saturday, Lev jumped out to a big lead in the 5+1 portion and never looked back against Spanish star Jaime Rey Martinez. Lev won 13.0-3.0.
See if you can find this superb tactic for Black in the opposite-sides castling position:
Here's the complete match replay:
In the second match, fourth-seeded Peter Balint of Austria was upended by Tani Adewumi. The two basically traded wins for the first eight games until Tani's various opening systems helped him pull away with a series of wins.
How exciting was this match? Even though it ended 12.0-8.0 in favor of the American, there were exactly zero draws!
Here's a crazy game. Tani was Black and has his queen blockading the passed pawn. Here he played 29...Nxh4. But was that a good move or did he blunder the beautiful tactic 30. Qxh4 Qxh4 31. e7+?
To find out, click here to see how the game ended!
Here's the fun-filled full broadcast of Peter and Tani's match:
The final match on Saturday saw CM Ilan Schnaider beat Polish star CM Wiktoria Smietanska 10.5-3.5. Ilan used a quick 3-0 start to break away, and although Wiktoria made a comeback, the lead was too much to overcome.
This was a great match for geometric checkmates. Ilan played a lot of them! Perhaps his first was the prettiest. In this position, Ilan (White) played eight consecutive checks beginning with 31. Nf5+ to drive the black king all the way to a8 for an eventual checkmate!
To see how he did it, click here to see the full game.
The full replay along with many languages spoken in the post-match interview is here:
In the final opening-round match on Sunday, defending champion NM Ryo Chen won by nearly the same score as in match three. He beat fellow American WCM Omya Vidyarthi by the score of 11.5-3.5.
The match began very close, with Ryo only leading 3.0-2.0 as the 5+1 section came close to an end. But he pulled away late, winning the final four games of the match to make it an 8-point margin.
Ryo had very good results in the calm buildups that come from the 4. d3 variation of the Ruy Lopez, Berlin Defense. Here he showed great positional understanding. What did he do in response to the threat on his knight on c5?
To find out how to play fantastic positional chess, click here to see his choice!
Here's the full match on replay:
Both ChessKid Youth SCC semifinal matches will take place this weekend, July 24-25, 2021. Exact match times, commentators, and watching options will follow soon as an update on this article!