World Cadet Chess Championships 2024

Belgium is a chess country that has a lot to offer on an organisational level: in addition to the ubiquitous online chess platforms, chess players here, for example, can enjoy the many clubs with some nice youth departments. You can also play a lot of Elo tournaments here, and what’s more, the offer immediately becomes much wider if parents are willing to let their children gain experience in tournaments abroad a few hundred kilometres away.  Maastricht and Béthune are tournaments at our northern and southern neighbours respectively that attract many compatriots every year.

In short, Belgians have the chance to see an Elo rating behind their names at usually a relatively young age, even if we have not yet produced a Anish Sarkar (the very young Indian who had racked up his first Elo points at 3 years, 8 months and19 days).

Why this introduction? Because our beautiful national chess landscape is causing ‘problems’ in one particular tournament: the Cadets World Championships. Indeed, in the U8, U10, U12, it has already turned out more than once that our representatives are overquoted (read: the opponents underquoted). It is therefore always a tough job for our youngest kids to live up to the (far too) high expectations at that championship and it is even hard to avoid Elo losses. That loss can hurt the eyes a lot, as the kids in those categories invariably play with coefficient 40.

The 2024 edition of this tournament (which this year took place from 15 to 26 November in Montesilvano, Italy) is no exception.

Six compatriots participated. For the youngest, Rudrakshi Ramraj (U8 – girls), there was no pressure at all. When you have no Elo, you can only do your best and she did. With 4/11, she will no doubt be satisfied, especially since she beat two players of +1400 after all. Her final position (68th) is also in line with her starting position (starting position 65).

Still among the girls, but in the U10, there was already a bit more pressure for Oriiana Babii who, with her Elo of 1481, had to defend a 76th place. Unfortunately, she did not succeed: she scored 3/11 (with a nice win against a Bulgarian of 1516 Elo anyway) and thus stranded in position 96.

Yesenia Lukin (Elo 1732) was even in starting position 32 in the U12. That resulted in solid play and eventually half the points and a 53rd place finish. Very honourable in itself, but at that age you probably look (mainly) at the Elo points. So, a golden tip for both Oriiana and Yesenia: don’t do it! As a Belgian, your Elo-ranking is a real disadvantage in that tournament.

Above all, I hope that these experiences will encourage both Oriiana and Yesenia to master the game better and to play against players whose Elo is a reliable translation of their playing strength in later editions of the World Cup.

The same story with the boys: Miro (U8 – 1656 Elo and starting place 37) played against Russians, Poles and Indians with lower Elo’s, but in fact you know that in that age category the effective playing strength is not yet expressed in Elo points. As a result, Miro also lost Elo points, despite a nice plus score (6/11) and hopefully for him too, the motivation to increase his playing strength in order to answer those false ‘weaker players’ next time.

Siebe Pierloot (U10) played a tournament that was a lot more in line with the expectations. Unlike e.g. Yesenia and Miro, his Elo (1573) was only good for 126th place in the ranking. Siebe lost 4 games against players with a higher Elo and for the rest, he racked up whole and half points against NC to eventually finish on 4/11.

In the ‘big ones’ (U12), our country was represented by Khoi Nguyen, whose Elo itself had already peaked, but he had lost quite a few points in recent months (yes, that damned coefficient 40 again), so he only took 1994 points in his suitcase to Italy. That put him 43 on the starting grid and he too looked like it was going to be a difficult tournament after round 3 (1/3). However, he recovered very well and lost only one of his last eight games. So, for him, the tournament could easily last a bit longer, because in his last round, against a Dutchman with Elo 2285 (don’t our neighbours to the north have a bit of the same problem as our compatriots?), he would eventually get the full point.

His final result may therefore be considered very successful: his suitcase on the return was 8 Elo points heavier, he ended up with a 7/11 and finished 28th (while 43 was his starting position).

To sum up, I hope that all the Belgian players are especially drawn to the nice chess experiences that such a championship brings. Experiences that I hope will motivate and encourage the children to have even more fun penetrating the secrets of our game.

Chess-Results Server Chess-results.com – FIDE World Cadet Chess Championships 2024