The World Junior Championship used to be a high-prestige event; it is much less so these days. The highest-rated player in the current event, by far, is Andrey Esipenko. He’s a great player, rated 2677 in the tournament crosstable, but even higher-rated players who are eligible but absent from the event include Alireza Firouzja, Dommaraju Gukesh, Arjun Erigaisi, Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Vincent Keymer, and Hans Niemann. (Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa and Nihal Sarin are other eligible superstars who are absent.) The event simply isn’t what it used to be. Still, it’s nice to see who the up-and-comers are in one’s country, and to enjoy friendly bragging rights if one’s representative does well. So far, four rounds of 11 are finished, and eight players share the lead with 3.5/4. (The tournament site seems a bit cranky at the moment, so have a look at the relevant TWIC page for more info.)
We’ve been checking in on the Chess.com Global Chess Championship (you might recall this as the event Niemann was uninvited from during the Sinquefield Cup), and they’re down to the final eight. Here are the results from the round of 16, in bracket order:
Nakamura 2.5 - Dominguez 1.5
Duda 2.5 - Sarana 0.5
So 2.5 - Xiong 2.5 (So drew the Armageddon game with Black to advance)
Andreikin 2.5 - Caruana 0.5
Radjabov 2.5 - Nepomniachtchi 0.5
Giri 3 - Ponkratov 1
Sarin 2.5 - Ding 0.5
Aronian 2.5 - Sevian 0.5
The finals will take place in Toronto from November 2-8.
Appears that Esipenko even missed the first round. Interesting.
"The World Junior Championship used to be a high-prestige event; it is much less so these days."
What time are you referring to? If my memory serves right, the last time when a 2700+ player participated was Vachier-Lagrave in 2009 - winning on tiebreak. Earlier world junior champions include Mamedyarov (twice) and Aronian, the most prominent later ones would probably be Andreikin, Yu Yangyi, Xiong and Maghsoodloo (not quite world top later). One year got quite some media attention because Praggnanandhaa - at the time trying to break Karjakin's record - might have scored a GM norm or even a direct title by winning the event, he didn't manage.
According to "the Twittersphere" (don't remember who said so), Esipenko decided to participate at the last moment: He didn't want to return to Russia after the European Club Cup because he might have to enter military service.
Now there's also overlap with other events, Aimchess Rapid and US championships - though it's doubtful whether players (besides Gukesh, Abdusattorov, Keymer and Niemann also Liang and Yoo) would otherwise play the world junior championship.
The girls' event seemed to be generally more prestigious: winners since 2010 include Anna Muzychuk, Gorycahkina (twice), Saduakassova, Abdmualik and Shuvalova - now girls #1 Zhu Jiner is playing in the open section.