USCF has announced the qualifiers for both the World Youth Chess Championships 2018 and World Cadet Chess Championships 2018 tournaments.  Nine Illinois players have qualified for World Youth and 6 have qualified for World Cadet.    These players qualified by meeting the minimum required rating for their age group, based on the May 2018 rating supplement.

Dimitar Mardov was the highest rated of the qualified players in the open U10 section of the World Cadet tournament and so is named the Official Representative from the US Chess Federation for that section.  Likewise, Yuvraj Chennareddy was the highest rated of the qualified players in the open U8 section of the World Cadet tournament and is the Official Representative from the US Chess Federation for that section.

Aren Emrikian qualifies as a “personal rights” player for the open U8 section of World Cadets, because of the gold medal he won in the 2017 World Cadet tournament in the U8 section.

Arthur Xu qualifies as a “personal rights” player for the open U12 section of World Cadets, because of the silver medal he won in the 2017 World Cadet tournament in the U10 section.

All of the qualifiers are listed below.

The World Youth Chess Championships 2018 will take place from October 19 to October 31 in Porto Carras, Halkidiki, Greece.  The World Cadet Chess Championships 2018 will take place from November 3 to November 16, 2018 in Santiago de Compostela (Galicia), Spain.   More information about these tournaments and the official delegations can be found https://new.uschess.org/news/us-chess-announces-world-cadet-qualifiers/ and https://new.uschess.org/kids/world-youth-qualifiers-announced/.   While qualified players do not pay USCF administrative fees, and personal rights and official representatives receive additional financial support, these are open tournaments and any US chess member who meets the age qualifications (based on Jan 1 age) can attend.

Congratulations to all of the Illinois qualifiers!

World Youth Qualifiers

Open U18

• Zhaozhi Li
• Alex Bian

 Open U16

• David Peng

 Open U14

• Aydin Turgut

Girls Under 18

• Miranda Liu

 Girls Under 16

• Marissa Li
• Shreya Mangalam
• Aria Hoesley

 Girls Under 14

• Ashley Yan

World Cadet Qualifiers

Open U12 Qualifiers

• Arthur Xu  – Personal Rights Player (2017 U10 Silver Award)

Open U10 Qualifiers

• Dimitar Mardov  – Official Representative

Open U8 Qualifiers

• Aren Emrikian  –  Personal Rights Player (2017 World Cadet U8 Gold Award)
• Yuvraj Chennareddy  – Official Representative

Girls Under 12

• Natalie Wisniowski

Girls Under 8

• Nandini Prakash