Chess Weekly

The new world champion Shakhriat Mamedyarov is already a quite competent chess player: he is an actual Europe champion U18 and the third prize holder in the European championship U20. His rather high result in Nakhchivan (10 points out of 13) makes it possible to predict that he will continue his successful performance in adult chess.
The second prize winner, the Byelorussian grandmaster Sergei Azarov plays for quite a long time in adult competitions as well as in the juniors' ones. He is a member of the Olympic national team of his country. Just like Mamedyarov, Sergei was not impressive on the start but then he displayed his best fighting features and scored 9.5 points finally.
Five players scored 8.5 points each one. Interesting is that all the boys (including the winners of the top prizes) are alumni of the former Soviet chess school. The third prize together with the grandmaster norm was obtained by the Ukrainian player Alexander Zubov. Guseinov was on the fourth place and his compatriot Vugar Gashimov was the fifth winner, the sixth one being the Russian Vitaly Bachin.
There were no real struggle for the first prize in the girls' tournament. The Georgian Nana Dzagnidze won her first seven games thus eliminating all questions about the title. She scored 9.5 points obtaining the world title, the grandmaster's one and qualifying for the women's world championship.