CHESS TEAM USA - SCORED 16 OF 20 POINTS IN THE FIRST DAY OF THE NORTH AMERICAN YOUTH CHAMPIONSHIP 2009 IN MAZATLAN, MEXICO

Yes, our team is small. We are 10-Americans competing against 124-Mexican chessplayers and 4-Canadians, yet in our first day of competition Team USA made its presence felt by scoring 16 out of 20 points in the first two rounds; 14 of those 20 points against Team Mexico.

Our day started with the technical meeting in which the American, Canadian and Mexican delegates participated with Mr. Jorge Vega, President of FIDE America. During the meeting we were told that the under 8 and under 10 boys and girls would be played together because of the limited amount of girls participating. FIDE stipulated that seven rounds had to be played.

However, when the tournament started the entire tournament was combined together, boys and girls, regardless that some categories had more than the eight required girls per category.

Mr. Jorge Vega stated that the best girls and boys from each category would receive the gold, silver and bronze medals along with the Candidate Master and Woman Candidate Master Title, but the categories would remain combined.

We also had issues concerning players paired in the wrong age group, this caused the tournament to start one hour behind schedule. However, once the tournament began, in the first round 8 of 10 Americans scored wins, followed by the same result in the second round.

Here are the results after the second round, keep in mind the results are combined. boys and girls.

Under 8

Zeng Winston 2.0/2

Taghizadeh Rayan 2.0/2

Nguyen Emily 1.0/2

Under 10

Gilchrist Ian 2.0/2

Under 12

Troff Kayden 2.0/2

Karamsetty Jeevan 2.0/2

Munoz Claudia 1.0/2

Under 14

Finney Stuart 2.0/2

Under 16

Deepak Aaron 2.0/2

Karamsetty Madhu 0.0/2

HIGH: PERFORMANCE TEAM USA RESULTS OF THE DAY:

1. In the first round Deepak Aaron, under 16, defeated Julio Cesar Diaz Rosas (2035), Team Mexico's highest rated player. Deepak is the highest rated player of the section at 2135, however as stated before, the tournament started with numerous registration issues. After informing the tournament directors that Deepak was classified as "non-rated", they still proceeded with the pairings they had printed out. This caused for #1 and #2 to meet immediately in the first round. Deepak won the game, thus, quickly ending the showdown that would have probably been played out in the last round.

2. Winston Zeng, under 8, defeated Team Mexico's Carlos Sandoval Mercado who recently won the silver medal at the 2009 Pan American Youth Championship in Argentina. Winston imposed a strong center attack that proved to much for Carlos Sandoval to handle.