ChessKid Announces 2021 Youth Speed Chess Championship
Palo Alto, Calif., April 20, 2021—ChessKid.com, the Scholastic branch of Chess.com, proudly announces the second-annual ChessKid Youth Speed Chess Championship that is set to take place in the summer of 2021. Like similar events such as the Chess.com Junior Speed Chess Championship and the Chess.com Speed Chess Championship, this event will feature multiple one-on-one matches. The best youth players in the world aged 10 and younger will comprise the field.
The event has a total prize fund of $5,000 and the winner will also receive private lessons with a super-grandmaster (who will be determined later according to the winning child's language preference).
Defending champion NM Ryo Chen, who still meets the age requirement, will be returning for this edition of the event. Like Chen, players must be 10-years-old or younger as of January 1, 2021 to be able to play.
Eight of the top young prodigies in the world will compete in the event. The participants of the ChessKid Youth Speed Chess Championship will face each other in a cycle of blitz chess. Each match will consist of two sessions (5|1 and 3|1 time controls) and last for two hours.
The quarterfinals are set to take place on July 17-18, the semifinals on July 24-25, and the finals on the weekend of July 31. The schedule of the young players will determine the exact time for each match. You can enjoy the broadcast of the matches on Chess.com/TV, with commentary by FunMasterMike. You can also keep up with the event on our new Events page.
Players
Below is the list of the eight confirmed players. The list displays their age as of January 1, 2021, and FIDE and US Chess ratings as of March, 2021. International players' seeding was determined by their FIDE ratings alone, while an average of FIDE and US Chess ratings was used for U.S. players.
- NM Ryo Chen, USA (10 years old, 2223)
- CM Ilan Schnaider, Argentina (9 years old, 2080)
- CM Lev Zverev, Russia (10 years old, 2023)
- Peter Balint, Austria (10 years old, 1978)
- Tani Adewumi, USA (10 years old, 1972)
- Jaime Rey Martinez, Spain (10 years old, 1910)
- CM Wiktoria Smietanska, Poland (10 years old, 1855)
- WCM Omya Vidyarthi, USA (10 years old, 1850)
Rules And Format
- Players must maintain their webcam live and their own connection to ChessKid. No take backs are allowed.
- All Chess.com/ChessKid fair play measures are valid for this competition.
- The winner of each match will advance to the following round.
- The time control for the first 75 minutes of the match will be 5|1, followed by a time control of 3|1 for the remaining 45 minutes.
- In case the players' score is tied after the last 3|1 game, they will keep playing in the 3|1 time control until a winner emerges. The player who did not pick the color in the first game of the match will pick their starting color for the first game of the tiebreaks, and there is no color equalization requirement.
Prizes
Round 1 (Quarterfinals): 8 players, 4 matches, $2000 prize pool.
- Winner: $300 (and advances to round 2)
- Other player: $200.
Round 2 (Semifinals): 4 players, 3 matches, $1500 prize pool.
- Winner: $500 (and advances to round 3)
- Other player: $250
Round 3 (Finals): 2 players, 1 match, $1500 prize pool
- Winner: $1000 and lessons with a 2700+ rated GM
- Runner-up: $500
About ChessKid.com
ChessKid.com is largest scholastic chess website in the world, with more than one million kids playing fast chess, doing puzzles, watching videos, and playing against the computer. ChessKid's core priority is safety. The site also partners with coaches, schools, organizations, and districts around the world to offer a fun learning environment. A special 30-week online curriculum that fosters necessary critical-thinking skills is available to all educators to allow chess to be taught as an educational subject.
Contact
FM Mike Klein
ChessKid.com Chief Chess Officer
[email protected]
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