Vietnam is sure to win the U12 World Chess Championship.

Egypt For the first time in eight years, a Vietnamese player will win the world standard chess championship at the youth level to quench his thirst for titles.

Player Dau Khuong Duy leads the U12 group with 9 points after 10 games, with only one round left. Number one seed Ahmad Khagan (Azerbaijan) is second with 7.5 points after 10 games. There are two players with 7 points still playing in the penultimate round: Nguyen Nam Kiet and Aaron Reeve Mendes (Canada). Players get one point for each win, 0.5 points for a draw and no points for a loss. Regardless of the result of this round, Vietnam is sure to have a champion.

Chess player Dau Khuong Duy at the U12 World Championship in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt in October 2023. Photo: FIDE — Chess player Dau Khuong Duy at the U12 World Championship in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt in October 2023. Photo: *FIDE*

According to the tournament rules, if the players have equal points, the secondary index will be calculated in turn as head-to-head, then buchholz cut 1 (the total score of the opponents, minus the opponent with the lowest score). Khuong Duy won the head-to-head against Mendes, so even if the Canadian player won against Nam Kiet, he still could not compete with Khuong Duy for the title. Currently, Khuong Duy's buchholz index is also much higher than Nam Kiet's, so even if he loses the last game tomorrow, October 26, he is almost certain to win the title.

The World Junior Chess Championship is held annually, this year in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt from October 16 to October 26. The tournament is divided into six groups, including U8, U10, U12 boys and girls. Khuong Duy is the third seed in the U12 group at the tournament, with an Elo rating of 2,277.

Khuong Duy's Elo is currently ranked 13th among players born in 2011 or later in the world, although at the youth level the coefficient can change several times faster than professional players. There are strong players like Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus (Turkey) with Elo 2,496 but he is not present.

This is a world tournament, so Vietnamese players are supported by the state budget, but not all countries do. However, there are players who won the U12 championship and later became masters, such as Levon Aronian in 1994, Teimour Radjabov in 1998, Sergey Karjakin in 2001, Ian Nepomniachtchi in 2002 or Gukesh Dommaraju in 2018. Former chess champion Magnus Carlsen also participated in the U12 world tournament but did not win.

Vietnam has eight players who have won the world standard chess championship in the youth categories, including: Dao Thien Hai (U16 event, 1993), Nguyen Thi Dung (U12 women, 1994), Hoang Thanh Trang (U20 women, 1998), Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son (U10, 2000), Le Quang Liem (U14, 2005), Tran Minh Thang (U8, 2008), Nguyen Anh Khoi (U10, 2012 and U12, 2014) and Nguyen Le Cam Hien (U8 women, 2015). Khuong Duy will be the ninth name to join this list, and the first champion for Vietnam in eight years.

Khuong Duy was born in 2011, his family said he could read and write before he was three years old. He started learning chess systematically in 2018, and after nearly two years won the bronze medal at the U8 World Championship. He is making great progress, with the goal of becoming the Chess King.

Xuan Binh

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