India Clinches Gold At World Youth U16

On Sunday, India clinched the gold medals at the World Youth U16 in Gyor, Hungary. 

Russia started with six straight victories but eventually went home with silver.

Vishy Anand can look back at 2014 satisfied, as he won three tournaments and put up an excellent fight against Magnus Carlsen in Sochi. After the World Youth U16 ended, none other than the great Indian pointed out that it has been a good 2014 for India:

Its been a good year for chess in india . To top it off 2 GM and gold in U 16 !

— Viswanathan Anand (@vishy64theking) December 22, 2014

With this tweet the ex-world champion congratulated the U16 team from his country, who won the gold medals in Gyor.

The team, which consisted of IM Ghosh Diptayan (2516), IM Karthikeyan Murali (2497), IM Aravindh Chithambaram Vr. (2476), Kumaran Balaji (2316) and WFM Monnisha Gk (2110), won nine matches and only lost one, to Russia in round five.

The Russian team won its first six, but then went down against Iran in round seven. FM Tabatabaei defeated WGM Goryachkina as Black with a remarkable mini-plan of pushing his pawns on the kingside.

White was surprisingly helpless!

The non-titled Parham Maghsoodloo defeated IM Maxim Vavulin to set the score at 2-0, when Iran's team captain demanded that its board one Ahmad Asgarizadeh to offer a draw against IM David Paravyan in order to seal the result.

The final score was 2.5-1.5, and but while the last game was still under way, the following interview was conducted by GM Mihail Marin:

With three rounds to go, Iran, Russia and India were on 12 points. By then Russia had beaten India, India had beaten Iran and Iran had beaten Russia!

As a result, all three played against lower-ranked countries in round eight.

Iran and India made no mistakes, and defeated Serbia 4-0 and Ukraine 3.5-0.5 respectively.

Russia dropped another match point against Turkey, with wins on boards two and three but losses on one and four. The board one game was basically decided by a blunder:

During this round, Hungarian chess legend Judit Polgar visited the tournament. She was also interviewed by her good friend GM Mihail Marin, and this shouldn't be missed. A nice part is when Polgar tells about her games with Garry Kasparov:

In the penultimate round India beat Romania 2.5-1.5, Iran defeated Poland 3.5-1.5, Russia won 2.5-1.5 against Germany and Ukraine tied 2-2 with Turkey.

As a result, with one round to go the medalists were known already, but their order was to be decided by the last round.

Iran and India were both on 16 match points, but Iran's tiebreak was better. Russia had one match point less, and six countries were trailing with a gap of three points. 

In the final round the whole podium shuffled: India's 3-1 win over Turkey was enough for gold as Iran lost 1.5-2.5 to Hungary.

Because Russia crushed Ukraine 3.5-0.5, Iran even dropped to third place.

And if we remember Anand's tweet, India not only won the tournament, but two team members became GMs in Hungary! Murali Karthikeyan and Aravindh Chithambaram both crossed the 2500 mark, and both have all the norms needed.

Below you can find a game from each player. The first was already included in the previous report, but this time GM Dejan Bojkov had a closer look:

Here's Marin's interview with the winners:

2014 World Youth U16 | Final Standings (Top 20)

(Full final standings here.)