Canadian Youth Chess Championships 2010 Recap

Hey guys,

I haven't blogged in half a year, because after the WYCC I haven't been focusing on chess a lot and haven't been blogging at all.

This will just be a very brief recap of the Alberta team in the CYCC 2010, I'll be posting more about the tournament tomorrow.

I (7th seed) played on par with some higher rated players in my U16 section, but I ended up with only 4.0 where I scored some depressing losses in good or dead-drawn positions. Unfortunately I had lost a critical 6th round game in an almost winning position, and could not qualify for the world's as I was behind the tied 3rd players with 0.5.

Richard Wang (1st seed) was tied for first in the U12 section with 3 others after round 7, and had won his first tiebreak game, but there are no results on the web yet, so I'll have to wait to edit this post for later reference. His performance is not ideal, as he is 400 points above the second seed but had lost to a 1900 rated player which almost caused him to falter of the top of the standings. I'm very excited to hear good news about his playoff wins tomorrow!

Nicka Kalaydina (1st seed) won her U14G section with 5.5/7, only dropping one game to a previous WYCC contender, Rebecca Giblon. Luckily for her, Rebecca had lost her last game which gave Nicka a .5 point lead to win the tournament. Congratulations!

Eric Hansen (1st seed) had been leading his tournament after his win against second seed Aman Hambleton in round 3, but his opponents' preparation and his own lack of sleep had led him to have draws against weaker players in the last two rounds, which unfortunately concluded his CYCC with 2nd place and 5.5/7.

Yuekai Wang (6th seed) was not having the best tournament start, as he had drawn both a 1360 and a 1650 (approx ratings), and had not gained any superiority in the tournament ladder. But he managed to win his 5-6 round games which gave him a chance for top 3 in the U14 section if he had beaten second seed Tanraj Sohal. Unfortunately, he was tricked in a good position, and ended up with 4/7.

Jamil Kassam (2nd seed) was having a pretty good tournament in the U10 section, but when playing 1st seed Yuanchen Zhang, he accidentally flagged in a much better position. He came out strong after that loss and ended up with 5.0/7 in 4th place, with a very high tiebreak score as well.

Ian & David McCoullough both performed much higher than their ratings, and David had scored a very nice win in round 5 where he was losing but brought it back with a good pin&win. They finished in 10th and 14th, respectively.

Patrick Tolentino had very nice positions against many of his opponents, but he had given up some of his chances in the game and did not win all of them. This is his first CYCC as a U8 contender and he got 7th place out of 15 with 4.0/7!

Overall we did score pretty well, but considering our seeding in the standings coming into this tournament, we could've done better. But there are also many other factors that influences how we played, not just our rating level.

Anyways, it's already 1 AM, so I'm going to go sleep. I'll edit the post tomorrow with updates on results and additional statistics so stay tuned!