A successful IV World Junior Chess Team Championship

IV World Junior Chess Team Championship was held on October 10th-14th, 2001 in Copacabana-Rio de Janeiro-Brazil. Lithuanian team, consisting of two members Romanas Bursteinas and Robertas Bastys won the second place. Unfortunately, due to terrorist attacks on USA and the started war actions in Afghanistan, a number of teams decided not to participate in the championship. As the organizers could not postpone the event, only 9 men teams (Poland, Lithuania, Argentina, Paraguay, Belgium, Uruguay and three Brazilian teams) and 4 women teams (Poland, Argentina and two Brazilian teams) were participating. The tournament was played according to the Swiss system in 5 rounds. Our team met the second Brazilian team on the first match and after a long game they reached a draw. R. Burstein won on the first board and R. Bastys suffered a defeat. The same result was reached during the second match with the Uruguayan team. The third round brought the first victory: the Brazilian team was beaten 2:0. The Polish team (international master Kamil Miton and Rafal Tomac(ch)ak), which was considered to be the favourite of the championship, lost a point and our team was lagging behind them only by a half of the point. Our team even had a chance of becoming the first, but after a six hour match the fourth round ended in a draw: R. Bastys won a beautiful victory and R. Bursteinas could not hold the field against the strong chess player from Poland. Before the final round, the Poles had 5,5 points, the Lithuanians, the first Brazilian team and the Uruguayans – 5 points. The Lithuanian team met the first Brazilian team in their final round and the match ended in such result: 1,5:0,5. In case of a draw, our team would have got only the fourth place. In the final round the Argentineans reached a victory over the Paraguayan team and had the same number of points as the Lithuanian team, but the tie breaking procedure placed our team into the final second place. The final standings: 1. Poland 7 points out of 10 2. Lithuania 6.5 3. Argentina 6.5 4. Brasilia A 5.5 5. Paruguay 5.0 6. Uruguay 4.0 7. Brasilia B 4.0 8. Brasilia C 3.5 9. Belgium 3.0 The first Brazilian women team (Paula Delai and Stela Farhat) won the first place in the championship; the Poles were the second and the Argentineans – the third. Lithuanian chess players are returning to Lithuania on Thursday.