International News Today - Nov 18, 2011
The 3rd round of the Tal Memorial finished a short while ago. The play to date has been fairly sharp with 6 decisive games and a lot of draws being of the exciting variety. Four players share 1st with +1 scores. They are Magnus Carlsen (who has had a couple of fascinating games yesterday and today), Levon Aronian, Sergey Karjakin, and Ian Nepomniachtchi.
At the Women’s World Championship, Hou Yifan drew 1st blood yesterday winning the 3rd game with the black pieces. Their 4th game is still in progress although while Hou is up a pawn in a rook and knight ending, it appears that Koneru can simply recapture and head towards a draw.
The World Youth Championship started today in Brazil. Canada is represented by 40 enthusiastic players (our largest contingent ever). With last year’s gold medal by Jason Cao (who was unable to make the trip to the Worlds this year) still in our hearts; thinking with our head any medal should be wonderful this time around. Some of our best chances (at least by FIDE rating) are: Olivier-Kenta Chiku-Ratte ranked 8th in Open U12, Michael Song ranked 12th in Open U12, and Richard Wang ranked 15th in Open U14.
