US delegation wins three medals and more at the 2024 FIDE World Cadet Championships

Editor’s note: This article will be updated shortly with commented games from the event.

Three players from the United States reached the podium at the 2024 FIDE World Cadet Chess Championships, held November 15-26 in Montesilvano, Italy. Looking a little closer, about a quarter of the players in the American delegation finished in the top 10 of their respective groups, eight more players finished in the top 10 (including tiebreaks), and two more finished tied for ninth but outside the top 10 in the tiebreaker.

In total, 46 American players – the largest of all delegations – traveled to Montesilvano, Italy to compete in the three Open (U-12, U-10, U-8) and three Girls (U-12, U-10, U-8) -Sections of the 11-round Swiss system event.

The three medalists were WCM Abigal Zhou (Silver, Girls U-8), Stella Xin (Bronze, Girls U-8) and Aimee Yang (Silver, Girls U-10).

Four other players finished just off the podium: CM Chenxuan Ling placed fourth in the Open U-10 tiebreaker, while Aiden Li placed fourth in the Open U-8, half a point away from the podium. Sam Luger and FM Patrick Liu placed fourth in the Open U-12 and placed sixth and seventh, respectively, in the tiebreaker. More details below.

Girls U-8

Two of the three medalists came from the girls’ U-8 section, where WCM Abigal Zhou and Stella Xin took second place with 8½/11 points. Zhou took silver in the tiebreak, Xin took gold and also secured the WCM title with her podium finish.

American players made up literally half of the top 10 in this category, with Allyson Yu and Elizabeth (eighth in the tiebreaker).

Zhou and Yu were also two of the biggest winners on the scorecard: Zhou received 70 points and secured the silver medal, while Yu received 66 points for her fifth place finish.

Girls U-10

Third medal went to WCM Aimee Yang in the girls’ U-10 division, where she took a clear second place with 9/11. Her only defeat came to WCM Alanna Berikkyzy, the eventual gold medalist from Kazakhstan, who finished just half a point ahead of Yang.

Girls U-12

In the U-12 girls, the top-ranked American was Sophie Li, who placed 11th with a score of 7/11. But the stories don’t stop at the top of the leaderboard! Three other players topped the list of “rating wins,” led by Alice Chovanec (1694), who received 79 points with her score of 6/11. Tianmu Wang (1640) received 63 points for the same score and Candice Liang (1551) received 68 points for her 5½/11 score. It’s fair to say that some of the US players were a bit underestimated in this section!

Open U-8

Aiden Li led the way for most of the Open U-8 event with a podium finish, reaching a score of 6/6 before giving up a draw to eventual silver medalist Swain Sattwik (India) and “falling” to 6½/7 . After two more wins, Li entered the final two rounds with a score of 8½/9, a full point ahead of eventual bronze medalist Zimjing Guo (China). But a straight round 10 loss to Guo upset the standings, and another final round loss to gold medalist Reddy Adulla Divith saw Li finish in fourth place with 8½/11, half a point behind each of three podium places .

Open U-10

In the Open U-10, CM Chenxuan Ling finished in a tie for third place with 8½/11, but finished fourth in the tiebreak behind bronze medalist Quang Anh Nguyen (Vietnam). Ling also got off to a good 5/6 start before losing to silver medalist Marc Llari (France) in the seventh round and having to catch up. But with a hot 3½/4 finish, Ling recovered superbly and the 1967 rated player received 64 FIDE rating points for his rebound.

Linxi Zhou placed fifth with a score of 8/11, while Joshua Ling (1967) also received 64 FIDE points for his performance. Frank Zhongtian Cao (1793), who finished with a score of 7/11, also achieved an impressive lead of 53 points.

Open U-12

In the Open U-12, Sam Luger and FM Patrick Liu placed fourth with 8/11 points and placed sixth and seventh respectively in the tiebreak. This section also featured the only American player in any of the six sections to receive over 100 FIDE rating points for his performance. Congratulations to Vyas Miransh (1705) whose 6/11 score earned him 120 points!

The results of each section are available on Chess-Results.com. Games from the top boards of each section can be replayed on Lichess.