Russia, Iran Claim Top Spots At World Youth U16 Chess Tournament

Two national chess teams representing the Caspian region claimed the top spots at the 2017 FIDE World Youth U16 Chess Olympiad on Tuesday.

The ten-day tournament was held in India’s western city of Ahmedabad, from December 10-19 and brought together the strongest chess players under age 16 from 30 countries, including Russia, Iran, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The match was based on the Swiss-styled nine round system.

According to the final rankings, Russia’s team came in first place, outpacing the second-place finishers from India by 4-0 in the last game of the match. Russia’s five-man team, including Semen Lomasov, Sergei Lobanov, Artur Gaifullin, Timur Fukhrutdinov and Alexandra Obolentseva hit the jackpot with a cash prize in the amount of €1,250 (USD $1,480), following the nine rounds of the match.

After defeating players from Belarus within the last round also by 4-0, Iran’s team came in third place. Mohammad Amin Tabatabaei, Alireza Firouzja, Arian Gholami, Mahdi Gholami and Anousha Mahdian all played strong games against their rivals.

After defeating representatives of Belarus within the last round (also 4-0), the team from Iran ranked third. / WYCO-2017

The team from Kazakhstan, another Caspian region competitor, ranked ninth overall but the team managed to claim the second spot in individual standings. Tamerlan Bekturov took a silver medal after outpacing India’s Ramesh Babu Vaishali on Tuesday.

“I will remember this Olympiad for a long time, as I happened to play with the strongest young chess players from around the world,” Bekturov told Kazinform after the game.

“Of course, we wanted to be in the top three, but we are striving, and I hope, we will achieve such results in subsequent tournaments,” he said.