Uppsala Young Champions

The biggest shock in the third round was undoubtedly Emil Reimegård’s victory against Edvin Trost. Edvin is one of Sweden’s top chess talents and has more than 800(!) rating points more than Emil. And to top it all off, Emil hasn’t played more than a few games a year in recent years, instead he is one of Uppsala SSS’s most important youth leaders.

In any case, Emil got the chance at the last second to be part of this year’s Uppsala Young Champions and he really has taken advantage of that chance! In round two he won against Oliver Nilsson and in the following round it was time to face Edvin Trost.

In round four, Emil Reimegård now has to take on last year’s winner Vignir Vatnar Stefansson. Actually, they have met once before, when they were 8-9 years old, they were both in the Nordic school championships and then Vignir won. Will there be revenge today?

During round 3, Jesper Hall will be joined by Norway’s superstar grandmaster Simen Agdestein during the live broadcast. Simen was Norway’s top player until Magnus Carlsen broke through, and has also coached Magnus for several years. He is now the principal of Norway’s chess gymnasium NTG, where many Norwegian and also Swedish talents have attended.

The broadcast will start at 4.15 pm.

We will pick up two nice finishes from the second round’s games. First, it is Axel Falkevall who found an elegant way to win the game against Semen Mitusov from Ukraine. Axel plays white and this is the position after black’s 19th move.

Here Axel played the forcing move 20.Nxe6!! The game continued 20…fxe6 21.Bxe6† Kf8 22.Ng5 h6 and in this position Axel found a move that pleased the crowd.

22.Qh5! and black resigned. The queen can indeed be taken, but after 22…Nxh5 white checkmates with 23.Nh7.

One of the players with two victories is GM Felix Blohberger from Austria. He played black against the Swedish hope Ludvig Carlsson, Västerås, and managed to trick Ludvig with a cunning trap. In this position, Ludvig has just played 18.Rf1-d1.

It is not possible to take on c3 directly, but black can exploit the fact that the knight is en prise in a way that is not entirely obvious. After 18…Bxg2 19.Kxg2 came the quirky 19…Nd7!! and white is actually completely lost.

20.Nxd7 dxc3 21.Rd6 (21.Nf6† does not work either. After 21…gxf6 22.Rxd8† Rxd8 23.Rxd8† Kg7 24.Rd1 Nxa2 it is not possible to stopping Black’s c-pawn) Nxa2 22.Nb8 Rxd6 23.Rxd6 Rxb8 and besides Black leading with a piece, the pawn on c3 soon becomes a queen. White resigned.

Here you can follow the results and standings in the tournament.

As usual in Swiss tournaments, there is a relatively large difference in playing strength between the opponents in the first round. Most of the higher ranked players also won according to plan, although a few got away with a mere scare. However, David Nesse from Norway managed to catch a draw against Gustav Törngren and a draw was the result also between one of the favorites Platon Galperin from Ukraine and Benedikt Briem from Iceland. The only real clash came in the game between Victor Muntean and IM Jakob Leon Pajeken from Germany. Muntean played an opening inspired by Awonder Liang’s victory against Levon Aronian in the recently concluded USA Championship.

IM Jesper Hall is this year’s commentator and the broadcast can be followed on our YouTube channel.

For the ninth time we invite some of Europe’s greatest talents under twenty years of age. Each edition of the tournament has been a little better than the one before, and this year’s is no exception, where among the 40 participants there are two grand masters and eleven international masters.

The organizers Uppsala School Chess Society and Uppsala Chess+ Academy have the ambition to take chess to a new level, and this applies not least to the breadth with which we want to give a wonderful experience of our game. Therefore, we not only try to create the best conditions for the players during the days in Uppsala, but also offer spectators livestreaming so you can follow your favourites.

And there are many favourites. First of all Francesco Sonis from Italy, who just finished fourth in the JVM on the same score as the winner, but of course also the other grand master Felix Blohberger from Austria, who is a familiar face in Uppsala. Add eleven players over 2400, where it is easy to “name drop” players like Platon Galperin from Ukraine, Elham Abdrlauf from Norway and last year’s winner Vignir Vatnar Stefansson from Iceland. You understand that this is going to be an exciting event. Even Siem van Dael, who won the tournament two years ago, probably wants to fight for the victory.

From a Swedish perspective, it is nice to see that the majority of our young talents are playing, with Kaan Küçüksarı as the main contender. One idea with the tournament is of course to give the home players the chance to measure themselves against the cream of the junior elite in Europe.

Welcome to Uppsala and/or to our live broadcasts!

As usual, we expect this year’s edition to surpass last year’s in both quality and playing strength. Several strong players have already signed up and we are looking forward to a very nice competition.

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Already registered players

Vaibhav Chopra, known Youtuber with the channel Vava Chess , was this year specially invited to Uppsala Young Champions. It was actually the first time he was at a “real” chess tournament to film and it was very nice to welcoming him as our guest Here are some of the clips he posted from Uppsala:

• VaVa Chess in Sweden to Cover Uppsala Young Champions 2021 < / a>
• When your Hand do not want to make a Move
• The Firouzja-Like Handshake
• 10-Year-Old Girl goes for the attack against 47-Year-Old Man
• When You Do Not Press the Clock, You Smash the Clock
• EVERY ONE Protects their King – Wait, Not EVERY ONE !!
• Younger Sister was about to Checkmate but Lost on Time !!
• Rook vs 4 Pawns … Still, The Game Ends in a Draw
• The Best Way to Resign is to Smile

All games from Uppsala Young Champions will be broadcast live, just as usual. Here are some places you can follow the games:

• chess24.com
• FollowChess