Thursday, June 2, 2011

Youth Festival : Kenya

 Mrs Sandhya Deshpande from Kenya sent us some information and photographs about Kenya's national championship for youth. In under - 10 Girls category Sharanya Iyengar ( last year's U-8 champion ) won the title with 4.5/5 points. But last year's U-8 boy's champion Sumit could not retain first place and got only IV place. New champion is Ritvik. Sumit's elder sister Sanjana won a trophy in her category. Here we see young champions with their trophies.

 And in picture below Sanjna Deshpande with her trophy. In most cases ( but not always ) boy's champion is about 100-200 points stronger compared to girl's champion in their age group. But Sharanya is at least  300 points ahead of Ritvik in U-10. In fact Ritvik keeps his game very simple and does not lose his pieces easily as you can see in case of Sumit or other players of his age. But he needs to play much stronger if he wants to compete in international tournaments.