World Under 16 Youth Olympiad-2022:Report

Today India won the fourth round by huge margin  (3.5 – 0.5 point) against Uzbekistan-2 in the ongoing World Youth Olympiad   being held at Nakhchivan, Azerbaijan from 2^nd to 10^th Oct 2022.

India is third seed headed by IM Pranav V (achieved all GM norms ) on board one followed by Pranesh on 2^nd Board. The other two player are Harshad and Rohit in boys and Tanisha Boramanikar, Mrutticka Mallick in Girls. Unlike  previous editions, this Olympiad has a new rule that the every team should field at least one girl each round and there is no fixed board order for them which means girls can play against each other or they can be paired against a boy.

India being a strong contender for the title cruised through very easily in the  initial two rounds with 4 and 3.5 points respectively. The third round loss against  Kazakhstan  was  a setback for team India as third and fourth board  loss proved fatal.

After winning the fourth round today India shares second place along with 4 other teams. Turkey-1 and Kazakhstan are leading with perfect score and will be playing against each other tomorrow. India will be playing Iran in the 5^th round who is first seed of this tournament. On board1 Pravan V will be playing against Daneshvar Bardiya who is currently out of form with 2 losses in 4 games. Tanisha playing on fourth board has won all the three games so far and should continue her good form in remaining rounds. Pranesh has also scored 3.5 points out of 4 rounds defending tough poisitons.GM Tejas Bakre is the captain of team and WGM Swati Ghate is coach of the team.

The official site is- https://youtholympiad.fide.com/en/