World Youth Chess Tournament

The World Youth Chess Tournament, which is the Olympics and the Super Bowl combined of the international scholastic chess world, is taking place from November 7-19.  This year, the tournament is being held in the ski resort city of Maribor, Slovenia.  There are a total of 1587 total participants in various age categories.  This is the most important youth chess event of the year, and therefore we see strong participation of much of the world's best young talents.  90+ participants from the United States are taking part this year in the event, ranging in ages from 6 to 17, including 15 from the Bay Area.  Future sites include Al-Ain, United Arab Emirates for 2013 (August) and in Durban, South Africa in 2014 (September).

For the 5th year in a row, a current or former Weibel Elementary attendee will be participating in the event.  This year, the participants are Horner Junior High and Weibel graduate 7th grader Kevin Moy in the Open U12 section, and former Weibel attendee 5th grader Joanna Liu in the Girls U10 section.  For Kevin, this will be his first time at the World Youth, while this will be Joanna's 2nd trip to the World Youth.  Joanna represented the US at the World Youth tournament two years ago in Greece in the Girls U8 division.

Other Weibel attendees in the past were Alisha Chawla (2008, 2009) and Michael Wang (2011).

The official website for more information is at http://www.wycc2012.com.  Live games and results can be seen at http://www.chessdom.com and at http://www.chess-results.com.  Look for further updates on this blog as well.

For USA qualification rules for future World Youth tournaments, please refer to the USCF guidelines page here (subject to change).