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Things are certainly on the up with the Chinese Taipei Chess Association under the leadership of their newly elected President Prof. Dr. Liu Ko-Fei with the hosting of back to back tournaments in August 2018.

First up is the new CAP Taipei Open from 10-17 August 2018 in Taoyuan which will be followed by the long standing 12th Asian Dragons Invitational from 19-26 August 2018 in Taipei.

The Asia Pacific Youth International Open is FIDE rated and will have separate open and girls events with age-group categories starting from under seven right up to under 19 and you can download the prospectus here: 2018 CAP Taipei Open.

Information about the 12th Asian Dragons Invitational can be found here: 12th_Asian_Dragons_2018.

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE ASEAN+ AGE-GROUP CHESS CHAMPIONSHIPS

The ASEAN+ Age-Group Chess Championships, now approaching its third decade, has has been acknowledged to be the single most important catalyst for young talent development in the ASEAN region.

Practically every leading young star, most who are the top players in their countries today, got their first international exposure in this event and many grew over the years in intense but friendly rivalry and competition together!

In fact, many tasted their first success at the ASEAN+ Age-Group Chess Championships.

Over the years, under the leadership of the ASEAN Chess Confederation helmed by Ignatius Leong and other prominent regional leaders including the Philippines Prospero Pichay Jr, Indonesia’s Utut Adianto and Myanmar’s Maung Maung Lwin, the event has grown from strength to strength as the participation summary table below clearly shows, with the high being Singapore in 2015 and the low in Malaysia 2017 last year when the event for once was not given direct titles and norms:

	B8	B10	B12	B14	B16	B18	B20	G8	G10	G12	G14	G16	G18	G20	S50	S65	Total	Male	Female
2000 VIE		24	26	23	14	10			14	14	12	12	6				155	97	58
2001 MAS	21	26	40	32	19	13		7	6	12	15	12	8				211	151	60
2002 SIN	17	42	40	36	13	12		11	16	12	14	11	12				236	160	76
2003 BRU	17	33	29	32	24	17		8	17	14	12	15	7				225	152	73
2004 VIE	19	23	28	25	9	8		14	18	16	13	9	6				188	112	76
2005 THA	17	30	29	31	31	14		13	20	19	14	14	12				244	152	92
2006 INA	24	42	38	42	25	21		16	26	26	22	14	10				306	192	114
2007 THA	24	24	24	28	26	23		16	20	15	12	13	10		6		241	155	86
2008 VIE	35	41	38	29	24	19		26	22	25	28	16	11		7		321	193	128
2009 VIE	28	36	21	17	12		23	18	29	19	20	9		16	6		254	143	111
2010 PHI	21	25	21	34	20		31	10	27	22	14	15		14	13		267	165	102
2011 INA	25	29	30	37	15		19	17	27	28	22	17		19	4		289	159	130
2012 VIE	41	55	42	35	23		30	22	37	33	26	21		27	6		398	232	166
2013 THA	44	49	40	39	27	10	19	23	26	31	28	14	16	11	13		390	241	149
2014 MAC	38	38	33	26	15	16	14	18	30	24	22	12	12	14	12	4	328	196	132
2015 SIN	58	65	39	36	23	14	24	21	36	29	29	14	16	21	16	7	448	277	171
2016 THA	37	39	31	24	12	20	13	27	27	26	21	19	6	12	16	6	336	195	141
2017 MAS	21	33	30	23	23	9	5	10	13	28	15	15	7	6	10	3	251	157	94
Total	488	654	579	550	355	206	178	277	411	393	339	252	140	139	109	20	5,088	3,129	1,959
Average	29	37	32	31	20	15	22	17	23	21	19	14	10	17	10	6	285	175	110

Happily the ASEAN+ Age Group Chess Championships has now had all its privileges restored and is all set to make a resurgence with it being hosted in the country that more than any other proved that Asians could compete on equal terms with the rest of the world.

WELCOME TO DAVAO CITY, PHILIPPINES

The 19th ASEAN+ Age-Group Chess Championships as organised by the National Chess Federation of the Philippines  under the auspices of the ASEAN Chess Confederation, endorsed and supported by the Asian Chess Federation and FIDE (World Chess Federation), and will be held from 18-28 June 2018 at the Royal Madalaya Hotel in Davao City.

ASEAN Secretariat | 70 A Jalan Sisingamangaraja | Jakarta 12110 Indonesia

For all information to participate, please download 19TH AAG Brochure

Official website is at: https://www.19aagphil.com/

CHESS IN THAILAND

What is it about chess and Thailand? Well, according to the World Chess Federation, it is a country ranked just 111th in the world and without even an International Master.

Yes, of course everyone does know about the Bangkok Club Chess Open, now in it’s 18th edition and still setting standards in the organisation of international chess events.

In the last decade, the Asean Age-Group Chess Championships often made its home in Thailand and more recently, under the leadership of  Thailand Chess Association (TCA) President Kittiratt Na-Ranong, also begun hosting FIDE events such as the World Schools Chess Championships 2015 in Pattaya and last year, the Asian Amateur Chess Championships 2017 in Chiang Mai.

Of course no one questions Thailand as one of the leading tourist destinations in the world!

PRE-EVENT PREPARATIONS

Arguably the Asian Amateur Chess Championships 2017 held a few months earlier could be said to have served as a dress rehearsal for the Asian Youth Chess Championships 2018 as it was held at the very same city and even the same venue and hotel with very much the same core local team in place.

But this time around with five times the numbers of players, accompanying persons, officials and helpers!

So in the end it could be said that the Asian Youth Chess Championships was organised by the TCA under the auspices and with the support of  the Asian Chess Federation (ACF), and held in Chiang Mai, Thailand, from 1-10 April 2018, attracting  a record breaking 571 players (of which no less than 116 were titled) from no less than 26 countries.

As always, the support from ACF was tremendous, Deputy President Bharat Singh officiating at the Opening Ceremony and General Secretary Hisham Al-Taher at the Awards & Closing Ceremonies and with Official Press Officers supporting the excellent local media team.

There were a number of supporting events, from Blindfold King Timur Gareev giving a simultaneous exhibition to Nurtr presenting the new Live & Steaming Video Chesss Training Program of Ramesh RB to Jacob Aagaard conducting free workshops on Chess Improvement.

THE RESULTS BREAKDOWN

In recent years India has all but made the Asian Youth Chess Championships its own and this time around it was no different when it took a total of 35 gold medals from their 68 in total won and so staying very comfortably ahead of Vietnam which had 21 gold medals from its total of 52.

China was in third place but far behind the top two with just 8 gold from its 32 medals won.

Overall (Team + Individual)
Rk.	FED	gold	silver	bronze	Total
1	IND	35	19	14	68
2	VIE	17	21	14	52
3	CHN	8	11	13	32
4	KAZ	4	3	11	18
5	UZB	2	2	1	5
6	INA	2	0	1	3
7	IRI	1	8	4	13
8	PHI	1	1	4	6
9	KGZ	1	1	1	3
10	MGL	0	3	3	6
11	SRI	1	1	6	8
12	BAN	0	1	1	2
12	MAS	0	1	1	2

When combining individual and team results, 13 countries, 50 percent of the total participating, were able to medal but it became 12, one less, when counting just the individual results.

Here again India is still the easy winner with 14 gold from it’s 33 medals and Vietnam is still second with 7 gold from winning 21 medals but third placed China is now a closer third place finisher with 5 gold from a total of 14 medals won.

Overall (Individual)
Rk.	FED	gold	silver	bronze	Total
1	IND	14	10	9	33
2	VIE	7	7	7	21
3	CHN	5	5	4	14
4	UZB	2	2	1	5
5	KAZ	2	1	6	9
6	INA	2	0	1	3
7	IRI	1	6	4	11
8	PHI	1	1	1	3
9	KGZ	1	1	1	3
10	SRI	1	0	0	1
11	MGL	0	2	1	3
12	BAN	0	1	1	2

Asian Youth Chess Championships 2018
Individual Standard Medal Tally
– G8 Standard
Medal	Title	Name	Rtg	FED	Title/Norm
Gold		Huynh Phuc Minh Phuong	0	VIE	WCM
Silver		Ebrahimi Rashti Asal	1140	IRI	WCM
Bronze		Dang Le Xuan Hien	1270	VIE	WCM
– G10 Standard
Medal	Title	Name	Rtg	FED	Title/Norm
Gold		Nguyen Ha Khanh Linh	0	VIE	WCM
Silver		Anupam M Sreekumar	1343	IND	WCM
Bronze		Rajanya Datta	1373	IND	WCM
– G12 Standard
Medal	Title	Name	Rtg	FED	Title/Norm
Gold	WCM	Sahithi Varshini M	1573	IND	WFM
Silver	WCM	Nguyen Le Cam Hien	1483	VIE
Bronze	WCM	Omonova Umida	1740	UZB
– G14 Standard
Medal	Title	Name	Rtg	FED	Title/Norm
Gold	WFM	Kamalidenova Meruert	1982	KAZ
Silver		Bristy Mukherjee	1720	IND	WCM
Bronze		Jain Nityata	1894	IND	WCM
– G16 Standard
Medal	Title	Name	Rtg	FED	Title/Norm
Gold	WFM	Bach Ngoc Thuy Duong	2128	VIE	WIM Norm
Silver		Makhija Aashna	2083	IND	WFM
Bronze	WFM	Serikbay Assel	2121	KAZ
– G18 Standard
Medal	Title	Name	Rtg	FED	Title/Norm
Gold		Hamedi Nia Vesal	1976	IRI	WIM
Silver	WCM	Yang Yijing	1987	CHN	WFM
Bronze	WFM	Karenza Dita	1831	INA
– U8 Standard
Medal	Title	Name	Rtg	FED	Title/Norm
Gold		Chen Zhiyuan	0	CHN	CM
Silver	CM	Manon Reja Neer	1666	BAN
Bronze		Adireddy Arjun	1506	IND	CM
– U10 Standard
Medal	Title	Name	Rtg	FED	Title/Norm
Gold		Kadam Om Manish	1788	IND	CM
Silver		Dang Anh Minh	1753	VIE	CM
Bronze		Jin Yueheng	1603	CHN	CM
– U12 Standard
Medal	Title	Name	Rtg	FED	Title/Norm
Gold	CM	Gukesh D	2401	IND	FM
Silver		Daneshvar Bardiya	2325	IRI	CM
Bronze	CM	Nguyen Quoc Hy	2061	VIE
– U14 Standard
Medal	Title	Name	Rtg	FED	Title/Norm
Gold	FM	Raja Rithvik R	2280	IND
Silver	CM	Wang Zideng	1891	CHN
Bronze	CM	Kushagra Mohan	2276	IND
– U16 Standard
Medal	Title	Name	Rtg	FED	Title/Norm
Gold	FM	Piyumantha M Sasith Nipun	2138	SRI	IM Norm
Silver		Vatsal Singhania	2106	IND	FM
Bronze		Sankalp Gupta	2374	IND	FM
– U18 Standard
Medal	Title	Name	Rtg	FED	Title/Norm
Gold	FM	Miciano John Marvin	2260	PHI	IM
Silver		Quizon Daniel	2228	PHI	FM
Bronze	FM	Xu Zhihang	2344	CHN

Out congratulations to TCA for a record breaking event and to getting on top of the enormous logistical challenges with a much larger than expected turnout!