Guinness World Record Finals Results

After more than six weeks of competition, the ChessKid/Judit Polgar Guinness World Record Tournament ended Saturday with an exciting two-hour final event, streamed live online. more than 8,000 kids competed worldwide in the qualifiers, and in the finals two ChessKids finished at the top with 9.0 out of 10.

A big congratulations to NiceGiantAnt and GM2B who tied for first place! Using ChessKid's standard tiebreaks, NiceGiantAnt became the champion of the event and wins the coveted first prize: A private lesson with GM Judit Polgar, the highest-rated female player of all time.

ChessKids competing in the final qualifiers in Budapest, Hungary as part of Judit Polgar's Global Chess Festival. Photo courtesy Judit Polgar.

NiceGiantAnt will also get to play an online blitz game against Polgar and FunMasterMike, as will the 2nd-5th place finishers: GM2B (9.0/10); TiCher (8.0/10); SafeNewRecord (8.0/10); and LuisDiaz (8.0/10). That group of kids will also get an autographed copy of Polgar's book "How I Beat Fischer's Record" which discusses her becoming the youngest grandmaster of all time when she did so at the age of 15 years, 4 months.

 For those that have been following the tournament closely or watching the stream, you'll recognize the username "TiCher" who is young Ukrainian prodigy Tihon Chernyaev. The nine-year-old streamed his qualification to the finals with FunMasterMike and his games were also featured prominently in the finals broadcast, hosted by FunMasterMike and Polgar. And more streams by Tihon are coming soon to ChessKid!

In case you missed the finals, here's the exciting two-hour show replay:

So how did NiceGiantAnt claim the winner's spot? It wasn't looking good in round nine, where White was worse for many moves. But NiceGiantAnt never gave up, and Black traded from a winning queen ending into a losing king and pawn ending!

ChessKids, make sure you review those queen endings and also re-watch the video on advanced pawn breakthroughs. And like NiceGiantAnt, never stop trying and you might just find a trick to make a comeback (it should be mentioned that NiceGiantAnt lost in round one and then won nine straight, so making comebacks has never been better exemplified!).

Skip to move 61 for the unexpected finish:

After this important win, NiceGiantAnt went on beat WGM Carissa Yip in round 10 to grab first place. But don't feel bad for Carissa -- a few days after the Guinness Finals she became the youngest woman to become an international master in United States history!

GM2B got the magical mark of 9.0/10 with an important last-round win over SafeNewRecord. How did he do it? First, he used the famous FunMasterMike saying of "putting pressure on the pinned piece (PP on the PP)" and he also did not settle for a draw. It also didn't hurt to then win a queen with a nice discovered check!

Skip to move 34 for the tactical finish:

ChessKid would also like to mention the other children who finished with 8.0/10 but had lower tiebreaks than the top five. Although not originally offered in the rules,these children will all receive free one-year gold memberships to ChessKid.com: cn123127; Ashwin23; Adam_Chess; maximka003576; mikemash; cn51485; dragongirlxoxo.

A school in Lithuania proudly showing off their participation. All ChessKids who completed a qualifier got signed certificates from FunMasterMike and Judit Polgar. Photo courtesy Donatas Pilinkus, Direktorius Lietuvos šachmat? mokykla.

For those wondering if the event was enough for Guinness record, that remains to be seen! We had 8,308 kids participate, and ChessKid will send all documentation and evidence to the Guinness World Records office to see if they certify the record later this winter.

We will keep you posted and thanks to everyone that played and promoted the event. With or without a record, this was exhilarating to see kids from every time zone competing on ChessKid!