… from 20th August to 2nd September in Weifang, China

Report – from the HOD

Opening Ceremony
The FIDE World Cadet Chess Championships 2019 for Under 8, Under 10 and Under 12 held in Weifang, Shandong Province, China from the 21st of August, 2019 to 1st of September 2019. Weifang is famous for its flamboyant kite festival celebrations that take place in Spring. The colourful opening ceremony was graced by the best female player of all time, Grandmaster Judit Polgar, who is also currently the Vice-President of FIDE, Director Zhu Goping, Vice Director Wang Yankui, and Mrs Li Ping the Deputy Mayor of Weifang City. The tournament is played 11 rounds, one game per day with one rest day after round 6.

Team England
6 players represented England at the World Cadets Chess Championships –
Under 12 Open – Manvith Sandhu, Teymour Harandi
Under 12 Girls – Amaya Macdonald
Under 10 Open – Sanjit S Kumar, William Joseph Lee
Additional Under 10 Open player – Kamran Harandi (pictured second in the gallery above)

Arrangements
The arrangements done by Chinese Chess Federation were excellent. They arranged pick-ups and drop-offs from the local train stations and airports. Students from Weifang University and surrounding universities were picked as volunteers. This helped a lot for the English speaking people. Volunteers greeted us with placards. England luckily got the accommodation at the playing venue in a 5 star Yujing Hotel. The 14 day stay went well. Many parents from various federations were worried with the choice of food. Luckily, food is catered for vegetarians and plenty of choices for meat eaters.

Tournament Results
The tournament had lots of strong Chinese rated/unrated players along with chess powerhouse nations Russia, USA, India. England scored points in every round from the 3 sections played together. This is an achievement considering we are only 6 players. Round 4 was our best scoring 4.5/6. Rounds 2, 3 and 11 were toughest, scoring 1/6 in each round.

Medals Table
The best results were secured by Russia, USA and China.

Rank	FED	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	RUS	3	0	0	3
2	USA	2	0	2	4
3	CHN	1	4	2	7
4	KAZ	0	2	0	2
5	MGL	0	0	1	1
	VIE	0	0	1	1

Team England Individual Results

Manvith Sandhu scored 50% of the score with 5.5/11. He is the highest points scored player from the entire England squad. He is the only player from the squad who earned rating points +4.4. His best result came in round 8, win over a 1907 rated opponent from Slovenia.
Amaya Macdonald scored a respectable score of 4.5/11. She started the tournament with a major upset. In Round 1, she won against the 1808 German player. She did well in the tournament and lost only 1.6 rating points.
Teymour Harandi scored a respectable score of 4.5/11. He came into the tournament with no FIDE rating. Barring 2 rounds, Teymour is the last one to finish the game and come out from the England squad. He fought well under time pressure. He will gain more success if he manages the time well.
William Joseph Lee scored a decent 4/11. All the U10 boys finished on 4/10. On the tiebreak, William finished top U10 player from the England squad.
Sanjit S Kumar scored a decent 4/11. Sanjith’s best result was a draw against 1878 rated player from Netherlands in the last round. All the U10 boys played a max 3/11 rated games. They faced unrated players in almost every round barring 2 to 3.
Kamran Harandi scored a decent 4/11. There is no difference from our three Under 10 players – they all matched equal.

Details can be found at http://chess-results.com/tnr462957.aspx?lan=1&art=25&fedb=ENG&turdet=YES&flag=30

Team outing on the rest day
The team visited a local Chinese cultural centre. The players enjoyed watching some Chinese cultural dances and adventures. The players had a great fun feeding the fish, going on the water slides and some karting.

Summary
Overall the players had a great experience in playing some great chess and meeting new friends from various countries. The England team particularly made great friends with all the Mongolian players and the only one Scotland player. Children enjoyed playing chess in the chess theme park and flying kites.
England did not have a chess coach on board. The players helped each other in preparing, analysing and playing practise games. All the players worked really hard with their online chess coaches. Though it sounds one game a day is easy on paper, practically it was tiring. 11 days of chess and being away from home  5000+ miles away for 14+ days is not an easy task.
The routine is —
Players played the game from 14:30 and then analysed the game, ate dinner and played for some time, analysed for the next round before sleep.
In the morning after breakfast, prepared for the game for 14:30 start.

The entire England team enjoyed the experience.
Head of Delegation – Ravi Sandhu

England Team
Manvith Sandhu	Amaya MacDonald	Teymour Harandi	William Joseph Lee	Sanjit Selva Kumar	Kamran Harandi