Vietnamese chess prodigy grabs world U-12 title

Anh Khoi becomes Vietnam’s first chess master to possess two world youth titles.

Vietnam’s 12-year-old prodigy, Nguyen Anh Khoi added another trophy to his impressive collection as he battled strongly to win the under-12 discipline of the 2014 World Youth Chess Championships in Durban, South Africa on September 29. 

Khoi experienced a hard-fought run to his overall age group title. Despite taking the lead after the first five games, he was unsuccessful in the following three matches, succumbing to two draws and one loss and falling to 16th position.

Khoi re-entered the world’s top 10 with a ninth-game victory over Finland's Keinaken Toivo in 44 moves before jumping to second place by beating American Aravind Kumar in the 10th round of play.

In the decisive match, Khoi recorded a convincing win against Russian Andrey Esipenko after 59 moves to join the leading group of four players who had the same score of 8.5 points. With a superior sub-index, Khoi claimed the overall title spectacularly, while Viachaslau Zarubitski of Belarus and American Rayan Taghizadeh came in second and third place, respectively.

The U-12 crown made Khoi the first Vietnamese master to secure two world youth titles. At the 2012 competition in Maribor, Slovenia, Khoi took top honour in the U-10 category with a perfect score of 11 after 11 games.

In addition to Khoi’s success, Vietnam also won a silver medal, thanks to Luu Ha Bich Ngoc’s second-place finish in the girls’ U-8 category. Ngoc shared the same score of 8.5 points with Mongolia’s Munkhzul Davaakhuu but missed the gold due to a lower sub-index.

The 10-day annual event brought together roughly 1,000 chess masters from 93 countries and territories around the world. The players competed in 11 rounds according to the Swiss system for boys’ and girls’ titles in five different age groups of U-8, U-10, U-12, U-14, U-16 and U-18.

Nhan Dan Online

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