Source: China Chess Association
On May 23, the "Shanghai Gulf Cup" 2024 National Chess Rookie Championship opened in Haiwan Town, Fengxian District, Shanghai. Sixteen young chess players showed great enthusiasm in the fast chess elimination match, and the result was also very disturbing, with many surprises.
Xiao Tong, the top seed of the game, had a hard time getting through the extra round. Song Yuxin, the female chess player, defeated Jiang Haochen 2-0 in the extra round. Chen Yuan, the defending champion, was unexpectedly out. Only Kong Xiangrui made it to the top eight in a clean way 3-0
How strong are 16 chess players?
Just looking at the Li Chengzhi Cup result book this year, we can see that Chen Yuan is the champion of the men's youth group, Meng Yihan is the champion of the men's first group, Jin Yueheng is the second, Gong Sunle is the third; Jiang Haochen is the champion of Group B. As for the two female chess players, Song Yuxin won the Li Cup twice as early as 2018 and 2019, and is now a stable member of the individual Group A of the national championship; Wang Chuqiao won the championship in this year's individual group B match with unbeaten record, and has performed well in the league and the world championship.
Although Xiao Tong has not won the Li Cup in the past three years, he has the highest grade among all chess players, and just last month he won the ranking of super masters. However, in the face of Gong Sunle in this round, they ended up in a draw in four fast chess games and entered the extra game of super fast chess directly.
In the extra match, Xiao Tong stole the thunder and eliminated his opponent with his victory in the first set. After the game, he said that recently he played chess with high-level chess players abroad, always taking care to be stable. Today, he wanted to "rush", but he made mistakes and almost failed in the first round. As for the later competitions, he said, "Let's focus on stability ” 。
Song Yuxin and Jiang Haochen also played a dog eat dog game in the fourth fast chess match, but in the two extra games of super fast chess, they fought two cities in a row. After the game, she thought that she had a good attitude in the extra match, had a smooth start, and won steadily.
Today, Chen Yuan's exit was a bit unexpected. His opponent is Zhang Di, the winner of the Li Cup in 2017 and 2019, and also the champion member of the national team tournament, so his strength is naturally good. However, Chen Yuan was equal to him in strength. After losing in the first set, he was sentenced to be negative in the second set for "zero lateness" and suddenly came to the edge of the cliff. Although the third set pulled back one game, the fourth set could not recover the decline even if we tried hard, so we had to go out with regret.
Today, there is another "lucky boy" Zhu Hengyi. When his opponent Chen Kailin came to the competition site, he was ill and could not fight. Zhu Hengyi was "escorted" to advance. However, Zhu Hengyi believes that this may not be a good thing, because other chess players have been honed in the first round and entered the state of competition, and they need to be very careful in the later competitions.
After the first round, the top eight have been formed. Tomorrow's match is as follows:
