Summary and Highlights of Quebec Youth Chess Championships
This past weekend, at the age of nineteen, I participated in my first Quebec Youth Chess Championship. Of course, not as a player, but as a volunteer on thedirector side. As a chess-player myself, I do have lingering regrets of not playing in this major tournament but what’s done is done, and at my age it’s not a bad idea to get involved in the community.
Personally, it was quite exciting to see the extent of the talent of the Quebec players in this CYCC qualifier. Each section starting from U12 featured a 2000+ player and 4 out of the 6 sections featured a FIDE titled player. Pretty impressive on paper.
The tournament was remarkable for its upsets. In the double-round-robin U8 event, The top three players finished within 0.5 of each other with Qc grade 1 champ Kevin Zhong (1359) taking top spot with 4.5/6, Kevin Omichi (1080) second with 4/6 and Alexander R. Z. Chang (1199) coming third with 3.5/6. Lily Ma (unrated) completed the round robin with 0/6.
In U10, Edouard Fernandez-Busto (1081) edged top seed WCM Julia Kuleshova (1593) in an 18 move miniature in the opening round. This paved the way for second seed Prince Eric Guipi Bopala and third seed Richard Zheng to blow through the field, only drawing against each other. In the ensuing rapid tiebreak, Richard would get the better of Prince in a tightly contested affair.
In U12, second seed Wenxuan Zhong (1906) had to work hard to hold a draw after a missed win vs 7th seed Xi Ming Yu (1376) in R2. In R3, top seed FM Shawn Rodrigue-Lemiuex (2092) contented for a draw vs 5th seed Tyler Tanaka after the latter missed a killer sacrifice in a sharp opposite-side castling game. This draw assured third seed Qiuyu Huang (1802) of having a half point lead after two days with 3/3. After dispatching the second seed with black in R4, Shawn faced Qiuyu with black for a shot at the title. Since the former had 3.5 while the latter had 4, the top seed needed nothing less than a win in order to become the champion. After comfortably equalizing with his Caro-Kann, Shawn took the initiative, won a nice technical battle and earned the top spot on the podium.
U14 was another round-robin tournament, and everyone was waiting for the final round showdown between WCM Maili-Jade Ouellet (2039) and Francis Durette (1926). However, this highly anticipated contest became even more important when the top seed was upset by some fantastic play by third seed Gabriel Tinica (1578). In a must-win situation, Maili not only beat Francis in classical play, but also beat him again in the tiebreak to claim the title. Not a bad day at the office for last year’s CYCC U14 Girls champ. Also of note is that Gabriel missed out on this tiebreak when he conceded a draw to Muyuan Yang (1323) in R4.
In U16, a Cinderella story almost happened for third seed Ananda Saha (1920). After scraping a win vs 7th seed Evan Zhang (1584) after the latter had a mate in four in R1, he won the next three rounds, including defeats of both Yi Lin Li (Seed 2; 1969) and Run Kun Fan (Seed 1; 2070). But the clock struck midnight in R5, as 5th seed Mathieu Johnson-Constantin (1712) beat him with a gutsy Sicilian Grand Prix Attack as white when a draw was sufficient for outright first. After 5 rounds, he was tied with Run Kun. If beating the first seed was hard, beating the first seed in the same tournaments with different time controls is superhuman, and indeed, Run Kun avenged his loss to claim the title. On another note, after losing to Ananda and Run Kun, Yi Lin recovered and won a three-way tiebreak for third place.
In U18, second seed NM Zong Yang Yu (2395) was all business in the round robin, only conceding a draw vs the top seed FM Olivier-Kenta Chiku-Ratte. But the big story was second to last seed Yu Qing Liu (1795). After having a positionally won position vs Kenta but faltering epically, he got his well-deserved upset by beating 3rd seed NM Hong Rui Zhu.
In brief. Here are the top three of each section. The player in bold won through a tiebreak. Underline indicates seeding.
U8: 1) Zhong, Kevin, 2) Omichi, Kevin, 3) Chang, Alexander R. Z.
U10: 1) Zheng, Richard; Guipi Bopala, Prince Eric Jr., 3) Xu, Yihan
U12: 1) FM Rodrigue-Lemieux, Shawn, 2) Huang, Qiuyu, 3) Yu, Xi Ming
U14: 1) WCM Ouellet, Maili-Jade; Durette, Francis, 3) Tinica, Gabriel
U16: 1) Fan, Run Kun; Saha, Ananda, 3) Li, Yi Lin; Johnson-Constantin, Mathieu; Saine, Zachary
U18: 1) NM Yu, Zong Yang, 2) FM Chiku-Ratte, Olivier-Kenta, 3) Zhu, Hong Rui
The prizes were modest compared to previous years, but they were much more concentrated towards the player's development. For example, Zong Yang is invited to play in the Cappelle La Grande International Chess Open in France, while other champions are signed up for Equipe Quebec, an FQE program that develops chess youth of the Province led by GM Eric Hansen, GM Alexandre Le Siege, IM Aman Hambleton and FM Lefong Hua.
The tournament director was FM Lefong Hua. Chief Arbiter Alexandre Ber. Behind the scenes were various members of the FQE. Volunteers included myself, Marguerite Yang and Nick Johnson.
Best of luck to all qualifiers to the CYCC. The event is in Windsor this year.
Link: You can navigate the entire tournament through here. PGNs that we uploaded should be made available there too.
Pictures can be found here.
Videos ro select tiebreaks can be found here.
Jan 15-17