Philippe Vukojevic 10.11.2024
The days when we were happy if a Belgian scored two points at the Youth World Championships are long gone. With Daniel Dardha, we had our first player who competed among the better ones, and since then, the other Belgian players are doing quite well too. The question was whether any Belgians would stand out at the Youth World Cup (U14 – U16 – U18).
Evidently it wouldn’t be anyway, because on the starting list, 37th place was the highest we could see a compatriot: Fausto Battistelli in the U14-section. He ended up finishing 28th. Finishing better in the rankings than your starting position is a great achievement, but in Fausto’s case it is even better: he played quite high throughout the tournament. After his 4th round (3/4, with only a defeat against the 8th-placed Russian Prokhorov), he invariably played on one of the 16 first boards. That included a game against the later bronze-medallist, Nurgalyev (Elo 2406) in round 9. Unfortunately, the last round was lost, otherwise he would have finished even inside the top 15. By the way, during the first World Youth Chess Solving Championships, Fausto ended on a remarkable 10th place: yes, Belgium is and will always be a country of chess problem solvers!
His Elo performance may be only a few points above his elo (the result of some very weak opponents in the early rounds), but the fact that he wins 42 elo points shows that he really did have a good tournament.
Same story in the girls U16 too, but here it is Maya Burssens who rewards herself with a bunch of elo points. At position 49 on the starting list, she finishes 32nd and the 1655 elo she had put in her luggage rose by 54 points on the fertile Brazilian soil. However, things did not look so good halfway through the competition, as with 1.5/5 she scored (far) below expectations, but, patience and perseverance are fine virtues and her 2nd half of the competition made up for everything: 4/6.
For Cecilia Pereira Garza (girls U14), it was also a good tournament on all counts: she finished higher than the starting position, won elo points and scored a perf above her elo. Granted, it all hangs together a bit, but we can really speak of a good tournament for her as well.
The other Belgian participants certainly lived up to expectations.
If Casimir (Open U18) had gone to Brazil to play interesting games, he was certainly at his beck and call at the start. After recording an (expected) defeat against an Armenian FM of 2328 in round 1, he actually faced the 2nd series leader, a Polish IM of 2489, in round 2. A fantastic experience, even if he was still empty-handed after round 2. Casimir is a youth player who finds the right measure against weaker opponents: no underestimation, no overestimation and thus, only wins against the lower elos, defeats against the higher elos… except in round 10, where he still managed to hold his opponent with 294 elo more, to a draw. Result: an expected place in the rankings, but a nice perf and, above all, 20 elos in the pocket.
Casimir’s sister Hoara and Dana Faybisch (Both girls U18) finished where we could expect them to. They both did leave a few points in Brazil, but should the Kenyan girl against whom both won have had elo points, there would have been a zero operation at the elo level too.
Amir (Open U18) will also have more or less the same feelings: he finishes nicely 40th, where he was at starting position 45, but he still loses elo points. Indeed, his wins – against two players below 1700 elo, among others – and his draw against an FM of 2277 do not suffice to make up for the Elo loss against the titled players (2 FM of +2300 and 1 IM of 2454). Still, a ‘normal’ tournament for him too and incidentally, he was the Belgian who did not lose a single game in the last three rounds.
The only one who did not have his tournament was Kaito Meysman (Open U16). While everything seemed normal after 4 rounds: 2x wins and 2x losses (against an FM of 2230 and an IM of 2484), he entered a negative spiral, including two encounters against strongly under-rated Taiwanese players.
He still fought back and eventually finished not too many places behind his starting position (8 places), but those underrated Taiwanese chopped into his Elopoints and took a whopping 42 of the 67 points Kaito lost, to Taiwan.
Now, we know Kaito as someone with a growth mindset and we are confident he will definitely turn those experiences to his advantage.
In any case, all the participants all came out of it richer. What an experience to go to a country, where you don’t have to go to the dolphinarium to see dolphins, or to the zoo to encounter crocodiles! What an experience to live with other players, both inside and outside the Belgian team. So many (chess) souvenirs they had not acquired at school, so many memories of a great period, far from home and thus a boost to continue to dedicate themselves to chess in order to be able to live those experiences again, maybe no longer in youth, but then maybe as a Belgian representative in the European team championships or in the Olympiads.
Many thanks to Alberto Battistelli, who reported on the tournament on facebook and whose group photo we use.
From left to right: Fausto, Amir, Casimir, Kaito, Hoara, Maya, Dana and Cecilia
The results are here.