This year’s Chess Junior Championships were held as two tournaments – the Under 12s and the U13-U20 groups.
17-year-old Jack Mizzi won the National Chess Junior Championship for the third time in a row with 6.5 points. Mizzi won his last two games against Matthew Portelli, and Gabriel Gauci to secure the title. Mizzi will now be eligible to represent Malta in World Junior U20 Championship 2024 in India.
The fight for second place was among Jacob Zammit (4 pts), Isaac Grima Bongailas (5pts) and Andrei Dobbin (4.5pts). The game between Grima Bongailas and Zammit ended with black’s victory. Meanwhile Dobbin won against Sacco, and thus secured second place on 5.5pts. Zammit (5pts) got the third place due to the direct encounter of his last game against Grima Bongailas (5pts) who is Malta’s Under 14 champion.
Matthew Portelli earned the trophy for U14 Runner up with 4.5 points. Gabriel Gauci (4 pts) claimed third place in the U14 category thanks to his victories over both Dante Pace and Andre Gauci who also finished with the same number of points.
Women’s Champion Milena Stagno secured the title of Girl’s Junior Champion. It was a close call as 13-year-old Hayley Thornton finished just half point behind, earning 3.5pts.
In the Under 12s group, John Refalo and Yunlong Wang both ended with 6.5 pts, drawing their match against each other. Both of them were eagerly awaiting the final result.
John Refalo was crowned the U12 Champion thanks to a superior tie-break score of 22 compared to Yunlong Wang’s score of 21. Yunlong was awarded the U12 Girls Champion Title. Samuel Spiteri collected 5 points and won the third place. The youngest group U10 winner Elena Borg Mercieca secured 4 points and earned the 4th place in overall!
Matthew Aquilina secured second place in the competition due to a stronger tie-break score, despite finishing with the same 3.5 points as Alexander Falzon, who took third place.
