CHALLENGERS CHESS TOUR IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY
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Challenge grandmasters in Banter Blitz
About
About
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FINAL STANDINGS
57
63
#
Player
Points
1
Vicent Keymer
11.5
2
Awonder Liang
11.5
3
Nodirbek Abdusattorov
11
4
Christopher Yoo
10
5
Lei Tingjie
9
6
Volodar Murzin
8.5
7-8
Carissa Yip
7.5
7-8
Marc'Andria Maurizzi
7.5
#
Player
Points
9-11
Dinara Saduakassova
6.5
9-11
Zhu Jiner
6.5
9-11
Polina Shuvalova
6.5
12-13
Sara Khadem
5.5
12-13
Balaji Daggupati
5.5
14-15
Jonas Bjerre
5
14-15
Leon Mendonca
5
16
Yahli Sokolovsky
3
Who's leading the race to win a trip to the World Chess Championship in Dubai?
234
260.5
ABOUT
The Julius Baer Challengers Chess Tour is a set of tournaments running alongside the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour, and featuring some of the world’s most exciting young chess players. These players will compete individually as well as in their teams, and so we’ll have a tournament winner as well as a winning team on the final day.
Vladimir Kramnik and Judit Polgar, together with their teams of world-renowned coaches, will provide weekly coaching sessions with the players throughout the Tour.
April
8-11
Polgar Challenge
$15K Prize Fund
+ Wildcard to following Meltwater Champions Chess Tour tournament
June
10-13
Gelfand Challenge
$15K Prize Fund
+ Wildcard to following Meltwater Champions Chess Tour tournament
Presenting Partner:
August
12-15
Kramnik Challenge
$15K Prize Fund
+ Wildcard to following Meltwater Champions Chess Tour tournament
September
18-21
Hou Yifan Challenge
$15K Prize Fund
+ Wildcard to following Meltwater Champions Chess Tour tournament
October
14-17
Final
$40K Prize Fund
+ Invitation to Meltwater Champions Chess Tour 2021-2022 season
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Age: 16 | Germany | 2591
Hailed as Germany’s greatest talent since Emanuel Lasker, 16-year-old Grandmaster Vincent Keymer notched chess’ highest title just before the pandemic in 2020 and became the youngest-ever German to achieve the feat. He earned his first GM norm as a 13-year-old, winning the 2018 Grenke Chess Open with a sensational 2798 performance that beat out 49 GMs, four of them rated above 2700. Tapped by Garry Kasparov as “exceptional,” Keymer today ranks No. 5 in the world among a star-studded group of U18 players.
Age: 18 | USA | 2592
Today the No. 4 under-18 player in the world and two-time World Champion in his age category, American prodigy GM Awonder Liang has been breaking U.S. records since becoming the youngest expert in the nation’s history just after his eighth birthday. Liang beat his first GM at nine and became the youngest U.S. master before he was 10, and now is a three-time U.S. Junior champion with a fifth-place finish in the 2020 U.S. Championship.
Age: 20 | Russia | 2489
After becoming the World Girls U18 Champion in 2018, then graduating to become the World Girls U20 Champion in 2019, Russian International Master Polina Shuvalova remains at the top as the No. 1 ranked U20 female in the world today. She has won several medals for Russia in the World Youth and European Youth Championships, and in 2020 tied for first in the Russian women’s national championship.
Age: 14 | Russia | 2502
One of the youngest players in the Challengers Tour, 14-year-old International Master Volodar Murzin is perhaps Russia’s most-promising up-and-coming players. He is a two-time European Youth Champion and currently No. 4 on the world list of players under 16, and under the world-class coaching of Team Polgar, Murzin hopes to improve on his endgames and strategical pattern recognition.
Age: 24 | Iran | 2494
International Master Sara Khadem is the No. 1 woman from Iran and the No. 13 female player in the world, a competitor for the Women’s World Championship in 2017. She was a World U12 Girls Champion in 2009, and the World U16 Girls Blitz Champion in 2013, then finished runner-up in the World Junior Girls Championship the next year. Khadem was the 2015 Iranian Women’s Champion and has played for her national team in Women’s Chess Olympiads since 2012.
Age: 14 | France| 2488
Age: 18 | China | 2462
Chinese Woman Grandmaster Jiner Zhu ranks as the No. 1 female player in the world under the age of 20, and the No. 24 female player overall. She was a World Youth Chess Champion for U14 girls, and qualified to compete in the 2018 FIDE Women’s World Chess Championship. She was also a bronze medalist in China’s Women’s Rapid Chess Championship in 2018, and would like to improve on her openings from the Team Polgar training sessions in the Challengers Tour.
Age: 16 | USA| 2429
Age: 16 | Russia | 2399
Russian Woman Grandmaster Leia Garifullina is the world’s No. 1 female player under the age of 18. After finishing eighth place at the 2018 World Blitz Championship, Garifullina won her age category in the World Youth Championship in 2019 and finished third in the 2020 Russian national championship. On Team Polgar for the Challengers Tour, she hopes to improve on critical moments in her middlegame.
Age: 15 | India | 2438
One of the youngest players in the Challengers Tour, 15-year-old International Master Aditya Mittal is also one of the world’s top-10 players his age. He was awarded India’s National Child Award for Exceptional Achievement in the field of chess in 2016, pushing on to earn his IM title as a 12-year-old in 2019. Inspired by Garry Kasparov, Mittal hopes that Team Polgar will help him study dynamic middlegames and complex practical endgames.
Age: 16 | Uzbekistan | 2634
The 16-year-old Uzbek GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov has been among the elite for a decade, since becoming the U8 World Champion in 2012. Abdusattorov broke a record as the youngest player to enter the Junior Top 100 as an 11-year-old, and then in 2017 became the second-youngest Grandmaster in history at 13 years, 1 month and 11 days, today the fifth fastest to earn the title. Now rated 2634 and No. 140 in the world, Abdusattorov hopes to improve on his middle- and endgame under the coaching of Team Kramnik.
Age: 16 | Denmark | 2542
As Europe’s top U16 player, Denmark’s Jonas Bjerre has placed a priority on physical fitness to stay on the top of world chess, first arrived as the U14 European Youth Champion in 2017. Two years later, Bjerre earned his third Grandmaster norm with a 2662 performance in the 2019 FIDE Grand Swiss Tournament, becoming the youngest Dane ever to reach the GM title. Already tapped by the Kasparov Chess Foundation, Bjerre is looking forward to more world-class perspective from GM Hou Yifan and Team Kramnik in the Challengers Tour.
Age: 15 | India | 2549
After earning the International Master title in 2019 just before his 13th birthday, India’s Leon Mendonca returned after pandemic lockdowns to earn his Grandmaster title with three quick norms at the end of 2020. Ranking today as the second U15 player in the world, Mendonca plays the violin, cycles and pushes his chess to the limits, taking inspiration from several bouts of training received by living legends, including Vladimir Kramnik, Boris Gelfand and Viswanathan Anand.
Age: 24 | China | 2505
Ranked just outside of the top-10 women in the world in a classical time control, No. 11 Chinese Grandmaster Tinjie Lei improves with speed and ranks as the No. 4 woman using a rapid clock. She earned her GM title in a big 2017 year that also included a silver medal in FIDE’s Women’s World Rapid Chess Championship in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. After tutoring under Chinese super-GM Wang Hao, Tignjie hopes to sharpen her calculation and practical endgames on Team Kramnik.
Age: 24 | Kazakhstan | 2500
International Master Dinara Saduakassova is Kazakhstan’s top woman player as well as the No. 12 female player in the world. She was a two-time World Youth Chess Champion as a junior and competed for the Women’s World Chess Championship in 2017. Saduakassova participated in her first Chess Olympiad as a 15-year-old in 2012 and has since played for the Kazakhstani national team in four Olympiads, two Women’s World Team Championships and three Women’s Asian Nations Cups.
Age: 14 | USA | 2457
Once the youngest U.S. national master at the age of nine, three years later Christopher Yoo became America’s youngest player to the International Master title and today sits just outside of the top-10 U16 players in the world. Perhaps missing his Grandmaster title only from a pandemic year away from OTB chess, Yoo finds beauty in tactical combinations and has won recognition for compositions, including a bronze medal in the FIDE World Cup in composing.
Age: 17 | USA | 2430
The No. 1 female in the world for players under 18, International Master Carissa Yip has been America’s girl since scalping her first Grandmaster as a 10-year-old in 2013. Already the fastest U.S. female to become an expert, Yip went on as a 15-year-old to set the record as the youngest U.S. female to earn the International Master title. Now a three-time U.S. Junior Girls Champion, Yip finished second in last year’s U.S. Women’s Championship.
Age: 15 | Israel | 2423
Aged 15 and his country’s top U18 player, FIDE Master Yahli Sokolovsky is Israel’s three-time youth national champion looking to tap into his potential among the heightened competition of the Challengers Tour. Fully inspired by hero Boris Gelfand, Sokolovsky is hoping Team Kramnik will help improve his thinking process during games.
Age: 19 | India | 2393
Inspired by Viswanathan Anand, Woman Grandmaster Vaishali Rameshbabu is India’s No. 3 female player and part of the country’s gold-medal team in FIDE’s 2020 Online Olympiad. She was both a U12 and a U14 World Youth Chess Champion and already has a GM norm under her belt, looking to improve her endgame technique under the Team Kramnik coaching in the Challengers Tour.