World Junior Chess Championship

and Canadian Participation in it

My thanks to Hugh Brodie for major help with this page, and also with the  Cadet page. Thanks to Pierre Bourget and Ole Hellsten. Any mistakes or omissions are mine. Tell me. See also the World Cadet (under-16, now part of the World Youth, WYCC).

The World Junior Championship is open to players under 20 at the beginning of the year in which the event takes place. It is run by FIDE, the World Chess Federation. Females are not excluded from the Junior Championship, but there is also a separate event for them which is not dealt with on this page.

The CFC (Chess Federation of Canada) runs the Canadian Junior Championship to determine Canada's representative at the World Junior.

2012 saw Eric Hansen achieve the best score ever by a Canadian, 9-4, blowing away the previous record of 8-5 held by Quan Zhe and Vinny Puri.

References.

• 118-34 - is the CFC magazine, now known as Chess Canada Échecs (1973-2008). Links go to the tournament crosstable in the CFC rating database.
• BCM - British Chess Magazine printed page number of the year in question.
• CC - Chess Canada magazine (1970-1975).
• Ch - Chess magazine, England (from the 1950s).
• ChAr - Crosstable at Chess Arbiter pairing software web site.
• ChRes - Crosstable at Chess Results (=Swiss Manager pairing software) web site.
• E+ - Échec+ the Québec chess magazine.
• G - my Saturday column in the Globe and Mail newspaper, printed edition.
• IC - Inside Chess magazine (1988-2000)
• Kazic - International Championship Chess 1974 book.
• NWC - Northwest Chess magazine, printed edition.
• SwMa - Crosstable at SwissMaster pairing software web site.
• T - The Week in Chess electronic issue number.

Did you notice that players who win the World Junior were likely to change countries? 93 77 73 55. Hmmm, considering the national upheavals, maybe not such a big correlation, but consider these ones who changed countries before they became world junior champs: 96 95 90 88 85 80 79 67.

Counting: From 1951 to 1973 (12 championships), held biennially, so the # of the championship is 1 + (year-51)/2. From 1974, annually, so number is (year-61). Thus 2008 is 108-61= 47th World Junior Championship.

Locations: As of 2012: 5 times IND; 4 ARM; 3 GER, GRC; 2 each TUR, COL, PHI, NOR, DEN, AUT, NLD, YUG, ENG, ARG, POL. Once in Canada, Toronto 1957, at the Central YMCA on College Street.

Winner Countries: As of 2012: 8 USR; 6 USA; 5 YUG; 3 each ARG, IND, ARM; 2 each BUL, CUB, AZE, FRA, RUS, POL. 1 each ROM, PRI, SWZ, ENG, DEN, ISD, GER, ISR, KAZ, HUN, EGY, TUR.

Ref is the issue and page number of CFC Bulletin FCE, Chess Canada Echecs, En Passant (same magazine, different names) for events held 1973 or later. 1970-73 would be Chess Canada and before 1970 would be Canadian Chess Chat.

2008 The Canadian Junior Champion did not attend. May have had to do with a financial crisis at the CFC, or with his transfer within FIDE to the Canadian flag.

2007 withdrew after 4 rounds due to illness.

1973 MacPhail's brief report is in 1/28.

1957 yes, the World Junior took place in Toronto, Canada, Aug 3 - 16. Erik Malmsten writes: Go on to a computer at any library and find the online database of the Toronto Star, Pages of the past. I searched for Lombardy and found 12 articles. Searchng the Globe and Mail database I found 7 articles. The Toronto Telegram would also have coverage, but that requires a bit more work, pulling out a roll of microfilm (At the Reference libraries at Yonge and Bloor or North York exCity Hall). The Star had interesting coverage as early as July 6 in their Saturday chess column by Charles Crompton and articles by Ray Krznavic. Or is it Krznaric? That would be the guy we later came to know as Ray Kerr. Held I think at the Central YMCA (now demolished) on College Street.

Canadian Junior Chess Championship

From 1960 to 1968, Canada's representative to the World Junior was the top finisher in the Canadian Open. In 1960, Robert Rubin won that right, but did not play in the 1961 World Junior, using the travel money to travel to other tournaments! In 1968 the tie was broken in favour of Jan Krótki, but he consented to a 4-game match for the World Junior spot with Camille Coudari. The match was drawn (Black won all the games).

In 1951 Lionel Berry Joyner won a match with Ross Siemms to represent Canada. I recently (Oct 2009) read that this 3½-2½ victory was the final stage in a Canadian Junior Elimination Contest held in April 1951, so maybe our numbering will need to be revised again.

For the 1951 World Junior, Canadian participation was determined by an event which culminated in (though I don't have reference to any other steps in the process) a match won by Lionel Joyner over Ross Siemms. Whether that should be called a Canadian Junior Championship could cause a numbering crisis. I'd number it i only if it didn't happen.

0 This was billed as the First Canadian Junior Championship, but by the time the next one was played 13 years later, nobody involved in the First (er, second) such event knew about it. Since this knowledge might otherwise be lost again, I reproduce here the facts sent by Stephen Wright (and thank you!), from the Vancouver Province newspaper:

First Canadian Junior Championship: Quebec City, July 7-13, 1957
Francois Jobin (Quebec) 6.0-1.0
Peter Bates (Toronto) 5.5
Frank May (Vancouver) 5.0
Dan Grimshaw (Ontario) 4.0
Peter Ihssen (Winnipeg) 3.0
Tom Carleton (Toronto) 2.0
Loic Therien (Quebec) 2.0
Lloyd Campbell (Sydney) 0.5

The two top finishers played in the World Junior later that year in Toronto. I wonder if Dan is any relation to David Grimshaw, who later became an Expert (and a cool one) from Toronto. Tom Carleton later lived in Ottawa. Loïc is the son of Jules Therien, a great figure in the history of chess in Québec.

3 Fullbrook tied for first with Kevin Spraggett and Peter Nurmi and won the title on S-B tiebreak. After this the rules were changed to require a playoff.

6 Buchholz tied for first with Jean Hébert. He won on tiebreak, as the players had unanimously agreed before the event.

9 A crucial game won by the tournament winner was pre-arranged, copied by the two players from the Informant. If I recall correctly, the CFC Governors voted that there be no winner to the tournament.

11 Hergott tied for first with Ingvar Liitoja ON and won a playoff match held in Kitchener ON, in 1982.

14 Puri tied with Tyler Johnson (then of Windsor ON) and won a playoff match held in Toronto and Windsor in March 1985.

16 Huda tied with Vinny Puri ON and Kevin Gentes MB. There was supposed to be a playoff match in Winnipeg. I'm not sure what happened! Puri ended up representing Canada at the World Junior for a third consecutive time.

17 Southam tied with Gary Basanta BC, who needing to win the second playoff game to overcome the tiebreak, lost gloriously 0.5-1.5.

22 Le Siège tied with Ron Livshits ON and won the playoff match 1.5-0.5.

26 Ho defeated Danny Goldenberg PQ in the playoff 1.5-0.5.

29 Charbonneau defeated Danny Goldenberg PQ in the sudden-death playoff.

31 Glinert defeated Andrei Moskvitch in the active playoff, 1.5 to 0.5.

And while we're having some fun, has a Canadian ever won a world youth-age championship? Yes. Jeff Sarwer won the World Under-10 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, 1986. At the time he was about 1900 strength. The chess world soon lost sight of him, but in 2010 he was interviewed by Jennifer Shahade.

URL: This web page is: http://members.shaw.ca/berry5868/jun.htm
Last modified August 15, 2012 (c) 2004-2012 by Jonathan Berry