This Agata Bykovtsev chess story would certainly seem to indicate that the USCF is no more supportive of their top junior members than our own CFC.
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Re: Agata Bykovtsev
b4 wins a piece due to Bc5 and Na5 and yet she's reaching for her d-pawn.Originally posted by Jack Maguire View Post
Strong chess is strong. -
Re: Agata Bykovtsev
Originally posted by Jack Maguire View Post
That's absolutely crazy! This girl isn't the top for her age either.
Off the top of my head:
1)Samford Chess Scholarship for top young American players. It is $42,000 a year and renewable for up to two years. Give me that in Canada and I'll be 26++ soon.
2) Various High School scholarships based on academics and chess level up to 10,000.
3) Many university scholarships to be won at tournaments valued up to 120,000$. This is a huge incentive.
4) Access for the top kids to train with Garry Kasparov for 2 days at a time, a couple times a year. Kasparov Chess Foundation/USCF provides this.
5) Large coaching staff for every international youth event. They pay their coaches VERY well. The ratio is usually less than 8:1 Player:Trainer
6) US Junior Chess school. Camps throughout the year with top trainers for the kids.
7) They have criteria in their Olympiad selection formula that favors youth.
8) Chess.com, a US based company, sponsors some of the top young players.
I'll post more when it comes to my head.Comment
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Re : Re: Agata Bykovtsev
To be fair, Eric, the article did state, "And for girls her age, Bykovtsev regularly ranks between second and fourth in the nation."Originally posted by Eric Hansen View Post
Coincidentally, she's be a distant #2 here to our own Jackie Peng, but about 350 points higher than our #3 U14 girl.
Point taken and accepted, however. The U.S. is FAR more supportive of their chess players than Canada!Comment
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Re: Agata Bykovtsev
As I understand they are not limited only to US citizens or at least some Universities attracts international players too. Thus, doors are not closed for Canadians.Originally posted by Eric Hansen View PostComment
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Re: Agata Bykovtsev
Originally posted by Egidijus Zeromskis View Post
Doors are obviously not closed for Canadians, but try to get Canadians to become IM by age 18 and you will have lots of difficulty.
1)The scholastic scholarships that I referred to in my message are limited to Americans. They are for American high school students only.
2)As for the university scholarships, you also have to be American to take part in the US scholastic nationals . Scholarships are given out at many of these national events.
They are not usually available for Canadians unless you achieve the IM title by college age. Calugar, Charbonneau, and myself are the only ones who have gotten them as far as I know.Comment
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Re: Agata Bykovtsev
I'm too old :DOriginally posted by Eric Hansen View Post
Anyway, Canadian Closed is one and the easiest way to obtain IM in the world :) Maybe somebody has a percentage number of Canadians who scored their titles at CC. I guess it is >50%Comment
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Re: Agata Bykovtsev
Maybe Larry can enlighten us, but it seems that some time ago (1990's?), Canadian juniors were doing so well in USCF junior/scholastic events, that they decided to limit them to Americans.Comment
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Re: Agata Bykovtsev
According to the CFC site, there are 24 Canadian IMs. I guess 23 now that Eric H has joined the more exclusive "club". ;-)Originally posted by Egidijus Zeromskis View Post
We can also extract out at least Castellanos, Cummings, Mecic and Porper. I think all were IMs before arriving in Canada.
So we're down to 19. I think there may be a couple more people who are IMs not on the list. I guess Dave Ross is not on the list because he lives in the US (though he is still a Canadian citizen) and Thanh Nha Duong, Bruce Amos and Zvonko Vranesic because they aren't active?
Ball-parking it, it looks to me like a bit fewer than half of the total became IMs via the old-style RR zonal. That would cover everything up to roughly 2000, so say a span of 30 years or so. Most of the rest got it since then in the new-style Swisses. My totally biased opinion is that the old-style tournaments were MUCH tougher (more rounds, had to face all the best players). I can't think of anyone who got them that way who wasn't already thought of as IM-strength."Tom is a well known racist, and like most of them he won't admit it, possibly even to himself." - Ed Seedhouse, October 4, 2020.Comment
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Re: Agata Bykovtsev
I'm happy to see that Agata Bykovtsev has stuck with chess and is now the #1 ranked American U16 female (2059 FIDE). That said, our own Qiyu Zhou is a year younger and higher rated (2109 FIDE plus the 10-20 points she'll pick up from Tromso) (:
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