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Announcing The Second Annual ChessKid Youth Speed Chess Championship Starting July 17

Announcing The Second Annual ChessKid Youth Speed Chess Championship Starting July 17

PedroPinhata
| 19 | Chess.com News

Chess.com is excited to announce this year's second annual ChessKid Youth Speed Chess Championship, kicking off on July 17 and 18!

Eight of the best young chess prodigies in the world (age 10 or under as of January 1, 2021) will go toe-to-toe in a series of blitz matches. The event will be in the single-elimination format and will take place over multiple weekends, with each match lasting for two hours and split up between the 5|1 and 3|1 time controls.

Fans will be able to watch the live broadcast on Chess.com/TV, with special commentators for each match. The tournament will also be broadcast on ChessKid.com's Twitch and YouTube channels.

Below you can see the eight confirmed players. Player ages are as of January 1, 2021. USA players' ratings are based on an average of the March FIDE and US Chess ratings lists. Only the FIDE rating is used for players from other countries.

Seed Player Federation Age Rating
1 NM Ryo Chen (returning champion) 10 2223
2 CM Ilan Schnaider 9 2080
3 CM Lev Zverev 10 2023
4 Peter Balint 10 1978
5 NM Tani Adewumi 10 1972
6 Jaime Rey Martinez 10 1910
7 CM Wiktoria Smietanska 10 1855
8 WCM Omya Vidyarthi 10 1850

Players will be seeded based on their ratings for the first round. Below you can see the opening round bracket:

ChessKid Youth Speed Chess Championship

FunMasterMike will be joined by other hosts during the broadcast. Below you can see each matchup and its hosts:

ChessKid Youth Speed Chess Championship
Hosts: FunMasterMike and NM James Canty.
ChessKid Youth Speed Chess Championship
Hosts: FunMasterMike and NM James Canty.
ChessKid Youth Speed Chess Championship
Hosts: IM David Pruess and WGM Keti Tsatsalashvili.
ChessKid Youth Speed Chess Championship
Hosts: BlazingBishop (Coach Liam) and IM David Pruess.

Players will battle for their piece of a $5,000 prize fund. In addition to the cash prize, the winner of the event will receive lessons with one of the 20 best players in the world. You can read the full rules and prizes of the event here.

Who do you think will win the most prestigious ChessKid.com event of the year? Leave a comment below!

PedroPinhata
Pedro Pinhata

Pedro Pinhata is the Writing Lead for Chess.com. He writes articles, feature announcements, event pages, and more. He has been playing chess since 2019 and lives in Brazil.

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