Shtembuliak, Shuvalova Are World Junior, Girls' Champions 2019
Unknown Ukrainian GM Evgeny Shtembuliak has won the World Junior Championship. WIM Polina Shuvalova of Russia has won gold in the girls section, her second world championship this month as she won the World Under 18 Girls Championship in Mumbai, India, two weeks ago.
The World Junior Championships (open and girls) were held Oct. 14-26 in the Leela Ambience Convention Hotel in New Delhi. The open section had players from 41 federations, including 15 GMs and 33 IMs, and no fewer than 18 players were rated above 2500.
The top seven juniors in the world did not participate, including the defending champion, Parham Maghsoodloo of Iran. Because most of them were playing at the FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss in Isle of Man., rising Iranian star Amin M Tabatabaei was the top seed, but it was a regrettable event for him.
FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich had an extremely busy schedule with the Grand Swiss and the Global Chess Festival in Budapest, but he made it just on time for the inauguration of the event.
As early as round one, the top three seeds were all held to draws. With a smaller but a stronger playing field, only Shtermbuliak and Spanish GM Miguel Santos Ruiz managed to win all their first three games. Their encounter in round four was a draw in 31 moves, but the round was not without action.
IM Aryan Gholami of Iran gave a walkover to his Israeli opponent, FM Alexander Zlatin. This incident was viral and soon discussed widely on social media. The whole incident was undesired but is unavoidable, especially at a world championship. The Iranian recently also played really well at the World Under 18 Championship two weeks ago. But here he drew his first three games and then, after this unfortunate pairing, he quit the event altogether. Norwegian journalist Tarjei Svensen summed it up perfectly:
Talented young Iranian has three impossible choices:
— Tarjei J. Svensen (@TarjeiJS) October 17, 2019
1) Not show up, forfeit the game and possibly the tournament
2) Play the game and face a ban from playing chess again upon return to Iran
3) Leave the country https://t.co/aHLYu67Lgh
In round five, we had our first sole leader in Shtembuliak as he beat recently crowned World Under 18 Champion GM Praggnanandhaa in a fine game with the white pieces.
Round six saw another unfortunate incident as above. This time top-seed Tabatabaei was paired against Israeli IM Or Bronstein. The former gave a walkover citing medical reasons. He continued playing but quit the event with two rounds to play as he had no chances of a podium finish.
🇮🇱 IM Or Bronstein, who won by default against 🇮🇷 Alireza Firouzja earlier this year at the Grenke Open, also got a free point today at the World Juniors in New Delhi after a no-show by 🇮🇷 GM Amin Tabatabaei. The Iranian government does not allow its athletes to play Israelis.
— ChesscomNews (@ChesscomNews) October 19, 2019
In round seven GM Aram Hakobyan of Armenia played Shtembuliak at five points apiece. Shtembuliak played a beautiful, textbook positional game and gave his opponent no chance whatsoever. In fact, the winner was brutally strong with white as he won all six games when he had the first-move advantage.
Santos Ruiz was always in the mix for the medals but was unfortunate to miss out with a last-round loss and finished fourth. But he can be proud of the following game that could easily be the game of the tournament.
The 13-year-old Russian star Volodar Murzin also had a dream event. He scored his first GM norm and also ended up on board one against the eventual winner in the last round. He lost but it's certainly not the last time that we will be hearing about this youngster.
Eventually the Armenian duo of GMs Shant Sargsyan and Hakobyan won the silver and bronze medals respectively. Interestingly, Sargsyan also won the silver at the World Under 18 Championships two weeks ago.
2019 World Juniors | Final Standings (Top 20)
| Rk. | SNo | Title | Name | FED | Rtg | Pts. | TB1 | TB2 | TB3 |
| 1 | 7 | GM | Shtembuliak Evgeny | 2577 | 9 | 0 | 73 | 77.5 | |
| 2 | 6 | GM | Sargsyan Shant | 2580 | 8.5 | 0 | 67 | 72 | |
| 3 | 9 | GM | Hakobyan Aram | 2561 | 8 | 0 | 69 | 73.5 | |
| 4 | 10 | GM | Santos Ruiz Miguel | 2560 | 7.5 | 0 | 71.5 | 76 | |
| 5 | 2 | GM | Karthikeyan Murali | 2617 | 7.5 | 0 | 69 | 74 | |
| 6 | 50 | Wang Shixu B | 2370 | 7.5 | 0 | 68.5 | 72.5 | ||
| 7 | 3 | GM | Aravindh Chithambaram Vr. | 2609 | 7.5 | 0 | 66 | 71.5 | |
| 8 | 25 | IM | Costachi Mihnea | 2463 | 7.5 | 0 | 65.5 | 70.5 | |
| 9 | 8 | GM | Praggnanandhaa R | 2567 | 7 | 0 | 68.5 | 74 | |
| 10 | 32 | IM | Murzin Volodar | 2433 | 7 | 0 | 67 | 70.5 | |
| 11 | 46 | IM | Mendonca Leon Luke | 2388 | 7 | 0 | 65 | 67 | |
| 12 | 4 | GM | Kollars Dmitrij | 2587 | 7 | 0 | 64 | 68.5 | |
| 13 | 37 | IM | Bronstein Or | 2413 | 7 | 0 | 63.5 | 68 | |
| 14 | 30 | IM | Raghunandan Kaumandur Srihari | 2449 | 7 | 0 | 63.5 | 67 | |
| 15 | 18 | GM | Kuybokarov Temur | 2501 | 7 | 0 | 62 | 66.5 | |
| 16 | 13 | GM | Harsha Bharathakoti | 2530 | 7 | 0 | 60.5 | 65 | |
| 17 | 31 | IM | Raja Harshit | 2440 | 7 | 0 | 56.5 | 60 | |
| 18 | 53 | IM | Pogosyan Stefan | 2364 | 6.5 | 0 | 65 | 70 | |
| 19 | 22 | IM | Drygalov Sergey | 2470 | 6.5 | 0 | 63.5 | 68 | |
| 20 | 26 | IM | Haria Ravi | 2463 | 6.5 | 0 | 63.5 | 67.5 |
(Full final standings here.)
The girls section saw the reigning World Under 18 Girls Champion, WIM Polina Shuvalova of Russia, rated 2412, win her second world title in as many events. Shuvalova started slowly but simply took off after the rest day. She scored a massive 9.5/11 and could have won the event even with a last-round loss.
Iranian WIM Mobina Alinasab finished comfortably in clear second to win silver, while there was a three-way tie for the bronze medal. After tiebreaks were applied, WIM Elizaveta Solozhenkina of Russia was awarded third.
2019 World Juniors | Girls, Final Standings (Top 20)
| Rk. | SNo | Title | Name | FED | Rtg | Pts. | TB1 | TB2 | TB3 |
| 1 | 4 | WIM | Shuvalova Polina | 2412 | 9.5 | 0 | 73 | 77.5 | |
| 2 | 25 | WIM | Alinasab Mobina | 2239 | 9 | 0 | 71 | 75.5 | |
| 3 | 17 | WIM | Solozhenkina Elizaveta | 2283 | 8 | 0 | 67 | 72.5 | |
| 4 | 10 | Berdnyk Mariia | 2349 | 8 | 0 | 66.5 | 71 | ||
| 5 | 33 | WIM | Aakanksha Hagawane | 2181 | 8 | 0 | 63.5 | 67.5 | |
| 6 | 15 | WIM | Song Yuxin | 2292 | 7.5 | 0 | 61.5 | 65 | |
| 7 | 16 | WFM | Li Yunshan | 2289 | 7.5 | 0 | 60.5 | 65 | |
| 8 | 2 | IM | Tsolakidou Stavroula | 2431 | 7 | 0 | 73 | 78 | |
| 9 | 6 | WGM | Assaubayeva Bibisara | 2381 | 7 | 0 | 71.5 | 76.5 | |
| 10 | 11 | WIM | Dordzhieva Dinara | 2335 | 7 | 0 | 67.5 | 73 | |
| 11 | 24 | WIM | Priyanka Nutakki | 2248 | 7 | 0 | 67 | 72 | |
| 12 | 13 | FM | Antova Gabriela | 2318 | 7 | 0 | 65.5 | 69.5 | |
| 13 | 36 | WIM | Chitlange Sakshi | 2175 | 7 | 0 | 64.5 | 68.5 | |
| 14 | 23 | WFM | Protopopova Anastasiya | 2263 | 7 | 0 | 62.5 | 67.5 | |
| 15 | 27 | Diakonova Ekaterina | 2231 | 7 | 0 | 62 | 66.5 | ||
| 16 | 12 | WIM | Munkhzul Turmunkh | 2332 | 7 | 0 | 61 | 65.5 | |
| 17 | 35 | WIM | Cervantes Landeiro Thalia | 2176 | 7 | 0 | 60.5 | 65 | |
| 18 | 45 | WFM | Katkov Michelle | 2106 | 7 | 0 | 60.5 | 63.5 | |
| 19 | 19 | Yakubbaeva Nilufar | 2281 | 7 | 0 | 57.5 | 61.5 | ||
| 20 | 30 | WIM | Kiolbasa Oliwia | 2223 | 7 | 0 | 57 | 61 |
(Full final standings here.)
The tournament offered live commentary throughout the event with world-class commentators such as GM Abhijeet Gupta, GM R. B. Ramesh, GM Marian Petrov and IM Tania Sachdev.
You can replay all the games here:
World Junior Championship 2019
World Junior Girls Championship 2019
Rakesh Kulkarni is the Director of Indian Social Media for Chess.com and a correspondent on chess in India.
Rakesh has earned the International Master title and is a former Commonwealth Blitz Champion and a Commonwealth Bronze medallist in the junior category. Rakesh has a Masters of Commerce degree in Management & Business administration. He now is a professional chess player and trains young talents across the globe on chess.com
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