And the winners are...

Final reports

By Vishal Sarenn and Vijay Kumar

Tables, games and links at the bottom of the page.

'Lucky’ as he decided to call himself, Armenian Grandmaster Levon Aronian, walked away with glory in the 41st World Juniors at Cidade de Goa.

Zhao Xue of China won the Girls’ championship on better ratings of her opponents than defending Champion Koneru Humpy. May we say that Chess is a great leveler? Last year in the same event, Humpy and Xue had tied and Humpy had better tiebreak!

Sophie Millat vs Koneru Humpy

Aronian was a man with a clear mission in the last few rounds. He started his final onslaught in the 11th round against S Poobesh Anand, was surprisingly at ease against his victory over Hari Krishna in the 12th and capped it with a brilliant performance in the last round against Russian Dimitry Jakovenko against whom he was merciless.

Governor of Goa Mr. K.N.Sahani presented the Junior's Cup to Aronian

And the guy means business. He is living in Germany to pursue Chess. Way to go!

The second place went to Luke McShane who won a game of fluctuating fortunes against Ferenc Berkes of Hungary. Luke probably had a good opening but missed the thread somewhere. Never mind, everything is well that ends well!

From the game Jakovenko-Aronian

Surya Shekhar Ganguly won the Bronze medal with some inspiring performance towards the end. This one is made of sterner stuff. He told us that he was playing for the championship and things might have taken a different shape but for that fumble in the 11th round against Berkes. Don’t worry Surya, life is also about missed chance and in any case, you can’t win them all!

Both Xue and Humpy did well to win their last round games against Dronavalli Harika and French Sophie Millet respectively. But, as Humpy herself agreed, Xue was the better player in the championship. What really mattered in here was successful application in better positions.

Russian Nadezhda Kosintseva won the Bronze. She scored 10 points, equal to Aronian!

Zhao Xue with the Crystal Cup

And if some of them hadn’t had enough the organizers organized a Blitzed event right after the last round! Reunion time! The boys and the girls have been separated for too long, albeit in the tournament hall! So this time around they played together and, some of them, were even paired!

Blitz Games for both the sexes

It was a grand event all right! Chess and otherwise too! The winners were awarded with crystal cups. The losers will have something to work on for the next time. Boys had a good time and so did the Girls. Life will go on…but this World Juniors will definitely be remembered as a huge success, the sweet memories of which will linger in the minds of all for a long time!

Final standings

Links

• Report after eleven rounds
• Report after round nine
• Report on the first seven rounds
• News
• The players
• Results
• Photos
• All games from rounds 1-12