At the end of the school year – eight Lithuanian Championship medals

One gold, three silver and four bronze medals! Such was the performance of the young chess players of Klaipėda district JSC sports center in the Lithuanian speed chess and “Zaibo” championships for schoolchildren of all age groups held on June 2-3 in Vilnius.

It’s hard to say if it’s a lot or a little. I think there is still time and place for records. Now separately about everything.

On June 2, “Zaibo” championships U10 (with U08), U14 (with U12) and U18 (with U16) took place. There were many beautiful fights, many emotions. It is nice that the medal distribution was attended not only by representatives of the big chess centers, but also by those who came from smaller cities or districts of Lithuania. That’s how our people fought among the leaders in several groups. Eventually it turned out that we got three prize places on the first day. Auksė Zonytė, who played in the M12 group, won the silver medal, Oskaras Kušlikis (B08) and Jorė Balčiūnaitė (M18) won the bronze. And the fourth medal just slipped out of our hands. Dovydas Spevak (B16) remained fourth in the division of third-fourth places due to a worse coefficient. Matas Valaika (B14), Šarūnas Juknius (B12), Antanas Čechavičius (B10), Norbertas Šatkus (B10), Vējas Čepauskas (B12), Tadas Petruškevičius (B14) and other students of ours performed well in Zaibe. In total, among the 238 participants, we had 26 representatives of the Klaipėda district sports center.

Even the day before, it was clear that three medals are not the limit for us. On June 3rd, all our people went to work with even greater energy. Lithuanian rapid chess championships of all age groups took place. Nearly 300 young chess players from various regions of Lithuania gathered here to fight. Separate tournaments were held: children’s U08 (with B08 and M08 scores), similarly in youth U10-U14 groups with boys-girls scores and young U16-U18 with separate boys-girls scores.

Since the start of the tournament, almost every second of our team has been in the leading groups in individual tournaments. These are Oskaras Kušlikis (B08), Norbert Šatkus (B10), Antanas Čechavičius (B10), Auksė Zonytė (M12), Dominykas Kušlikis (B12), Šarūnas Juknius (B12), Vējas Čepauskas (B12), Matas Valaika (B14), Dovydas Spevak (B16), Domas Andrijauskas (B16), Jogailė Paliulytė (M16), Dominykas Lavrentjevas (B18), Jore Balčiūnaitė (M18). It is true that not everyone managed to stay there for long, but at least five of them claimed medals of various colors by the finish line. Finally, it turned out that the achievement of our delegation on the second day was 5 medals (one gold, two silver and two bronze). And all are more expensive than each other.

First of all, it is great to celebrate that Jorė Balčiūnaitė has successfully completed her twelve-year academic career. Her gold medal in the U18 group was the only one for us during these championships. However, for Jorei, this is already the ninth school-age medal in all age groups in the Lithuanian championships. Three gold, two silver and four bronze medals – if I counted correctly, this is the personal record of our pupils during all Lithuanian championships. How long it will last is hard to say.

After all, Auksė Zonytė is approaching Jore’s achievements little by little. Aksė added two silver medals to her dowry in these championships (she now has six prize places in the Lithuanian championships). Gold yesterday in the U12 group had 4 points after 4 rounds. Oh, and in the fifth against Rytis Kavalnīs ​​from Kaunas, he had an advantage, but failed at the end of the game. In the seventh round, there was a decisive moment – the party with Arina Budiak, her main rival from Klaipėda. Unfortunately, I had to go down again. 6 points out of 9 possible while playing with the most capable Lithuanian boys of that age is a great achievement. Auksė fulfilled the most important task, after a year’s break, she returned to the path of victory. And the awards of the highest quality may come back with time.

Yesterday, Jogailė Paliulytė, who played in the M16 group, surpassed the achievements of the girls in our delegation. If so far she has not been among the contenders for medals in any of the championships, yesterday she performed as expected. Already in the first round, Jogailė achieved a victory over the strong Ugnios Žalim from Plunge, after a couple of rounds another great victory against a strong opponent, then again, and our girl was among the leaders among the ten equal girls. And in the last round, fate brought Jogailė to fight with her compatriot Domas Andrijauskas, who also fought for very high places in the B16 group (the level differences between Dom and Jogailė really exist, as their ratings show). Unfortunately for me, I was a hall judge in this area, so I got to withdraw from judging in order not to “lose my certificate”. Because, in the case of Jogailė’s victory, she would have really claimed to be the champion of Lithuania. Even the chief judge devoted a lot of time to this party. It’s good that our guys played respectably. Even after losing the last game, Jogailė won the bronze medal. This is a great achievement. Plus, the rating was 82 points immediately, which also showed a good level of play. In recent years, Jogailė’s game curve suddenly jumped up, she became the leader of her group during classes, regularly participated in district adult competition formats and showed good results everywhere. The place she won is a pleasant surprise for us, because the competitors in this age group in Lithuania are very capable.

After celebrating the achievements of the girls, we should also celebrate our boys. Oskars Kušlikis, who won the bronze medal in the smallest group (U08) the night before, did not promise to stop there. All the more so because his health had improved somewhat (on the eve of the championship, Oskar was ill, his departure was hanging in the balance). Already from the first rounds, ours was in the leading group, where it remained until the finish. In the last round it turned out that we got the silver medal (7 points out of 9 possible)… A great shift is coming. Who knows, maybe Oskar will be the author of our new records. And yesterday, he already repeated the first record, even surpassed it. Among boys, we had only one silver medal of the Lithuanian championships. Back in 2012, Mantas Pilipuitis, the all-time leader in the ranking of our schoolchildren, won it in the B10 group “Zaibe”. Mantas won silver when he was already B10, while Oskar did it during B08. His result was achieved at a young age, which means that Oscar is a record holder here.

Among guys, it is most difficult to achieve something at an older age. Young chess players with very high ratings traditionally gather for the championships. Even with the names of the masters there is one other, some of their ratings have already jumped over 2000. It was not an easy task for our people fighting in the B16 group. The most capable students of our school are precisely from this group. These are Dovydas Spevak (in the championships he was ranked fourth among B16), Domas Andrijauskas, Arvydas Žiura, Paulius Rusteika. Great list. Most of it is from the first grade together, all eight years. And this time, all our guys fought in the top ten or near it. The competition was so great that only Dovyd Spevak managed to stay close to the leaders. Well, let’s say, also to Dom Andrijauskas. If Paulius remained in 17th place (4.5 points), Arvydas in 18th (4.5 points), then Domas was seventh (5.5 points). And here, the start was very unsuccessful for Dovyd. A disappointing loss in the first round to a weaker opponent, a tough game in the second round, a draw against one of the outsiders in the third. I already waved my hand and directly said that with such a game you will hardly take tenth place. Those words seemed to wake David up from his lethargy. From the fourth round, he rose to the fight as if in good times, as a real leader of district chess in recent years. 5.5 points out of 6 possible – this is the finish of his competition, defeating all rivals one by one, including all the leaders who were before him. Unfortunately, such a finish was only enough for third place. But this is also a fantastic achievement. So, from now on, Dovydas Spevak has three Lithuanian individual championship bronze medals. After adding a couple of team members, he remains the most titled among all our boys, and in the absolute school standings he is third after Jore and Auksė. It is true that, among the boys, Dovydas is still ahead of Mantas Pilipuitis in terms of achievements, who went to live in Vilnius from the eighth grade and during his last school year in the Vilnius national team collected a whole collection of medals. Davydas added 62 more points to his rating in the last two championships. He is only 9 points short of being in third place after Mantas Pilipuitis and Laurynas Aleknas in the overall all-time ranking of our educational rankings. This is already a very serious application for craftsmanship.

And the rest of our team fought well in both championships. Yesterday, in the Rapide B12 group, Dominykas Kušlikis, Vējas Čepauskas and Šarūnas Juknius stayed close to the leaders for a long time. If these are the usual positions for Dominyk and Šarūnas, Vējas has only recently broken into the leaders’ gap. Having joined the chess group last year in September, he made a huge breakthrough in one academic year, as a result of which he became completely close to the leaders of that group…. In the final score, Dominykas scored 6 points out of 9 possible and was tenth among B12. It is understandable that such a place does not satisfy him at all, just like the position won by “Zaibo”. We hope that in the next championships, Dominyk will still manage to break through that unfortunate magical limit and he will come to the ranks of the prize winners. It’s only a matter of time. Vejas Čepauskas was fifteenth among B12 yesterday, Šarūnas – seventeenth. Edgaras Triušys, who fought in the same group, was in 36th place, Noja Valaikaitė – in 47th place. After 5 laps Noja was very high, with 3 points she was playing very close to the leaders. But that failed finish brought her down.

Matas Valaika, who fought in the U14 group, was in 20th place in Rapide (5 points out of 9 possible), Tadas Petruškevičius in 24th place (4.5 points), Vytautė Paliulytė in 34th place (4 points), Nojus Semenauskas in 37th place (3.5 points). Considering the overall level of competition, these are good achievements. Vytautė and Nojus fulfilled the rating requirements here. Others gradually rose in the rankings.

Gabrielius Martinkus (5.5 points, 15th place, among B08 – 12th place), Adelė Zonytė (4.5 points, 23rd place, sixth among M08), Jokūbas Ačas (3.5 points, 38th place) also fought among the smallest. , Emilijus Mineikis (3 points, 41st place). Everything is fine here, the little ones are our perspective. Especially since most of the small ones are just starting their careers. Oskar Kušlikis already has competition from others here, especially Gabrielius Martinkus, who sometimes came close to the leading group at Rapide yesterday. Gabriel’s performance was also a pleasant surprise.

In the U10 group, ours were not extras either. Here, Norbert Šatkus scored 5 points out of 9 (26th place and fulfilled the rating requirement), Antanas Čechavičius – also 5 points (28th place), Dominykas Kondrotas – 4.5 points (39th place). Good performance by all.

Dovydas Prelgauskas was not mentioned in the U16 group. He recently returned to the chess group of the sports center (he had attended and left the group), he made his debut in the Lithuanian championships when he was already of “respectable” school age. And he passed the debutante exam with flying colours. “Zaibe” Dovydas scored 3.5 points (42nd place), “Rapide” – 4 points (23rd place, Rtg.+63 points). In “Zaibe” he fulfilled the rating requirements for the first time.

Dominykas Lavrentjevs, who fought in the U18 group, literally “knocked out” two players of this group with a rating of almost 2000 at the start of “Rapido”. Having found himself among the most capable, Dominykas “couldn’t bear the burden” and gradually descended towards his starting position. It was a good memory for the competitors that everyone came here to fight, you can’t joke with lower ratings.

Much more could be said about this difficult trip to the championships. Our delegation was large: 26 players, a coach and 13 accompanying persons (40 people in total). It is also an away record. The sports center did everything to send us to these championships. We tried to make everything go as smoothly as possible. Let’s say it all worked out. Special thanks to those who decided to drive cars, because the sports center allocated three eight-seaters for the trip. Also thanks to those who drove their cars (Tomas Semenauskas, Maris Ačus and Viktorija Čepauskiena) and those who helped to bring part of our team. Only collective work unites for a common goal. Thanks to the parents who accompanied their children. Without them, I wouldn’t have been able to see everyone, maybe even wipe some people’s tears.

We dedicate all these victories to the city’s 770th birthday. At the same time, we brought from Vilnius not only the victories achieved, but also a separate gift – two pawns for the chess court. Over the course of seven years, the figures had worn away, and only the soles of the two pawns remained. Today they will be replaced with new ones. It’s also a nice touch.

Thanks to everyone who contributed. Chess in the area lives thanks to all of you.