Kazakh chess princess named 2013 Best Girl Under-20 Player of the Year
Monday, 14.07.2014, 16:45
14-yo WGM Zhansaya Abdumalik from Kazakhstan has been awarded the 2013 Best Girl Under-20 Player of the Year title at the 1st Annual Asian Chess Excellence Awards in the United Arab Emirates, Tengrinews reports citing Vesti.kz.
Abdumalik is a Girls’ World U-8 Champion of 2008 and World U-12 Champion of 2011. She is currently the top ranked U14 girl in the world and the 2nd top ranked player in the U14 division in the world. She achieved a woman grandmaster title at age of 12 years 5 months and 15 days, which makes her the second youngest female grandmaster in history after Hou Yifan.
Zhansaya Abdumalik was awarded with the 2013 Best Girl Under-20 Player title for her runner-up place in the World Girls Chess Championship.
“I was very surprised when I was told about this award,” the chess prodigy said, “I was in Iran at the Asian Chess Championship, when a representative of the Asian Federation broke the news. I couldn’t go pick up the award myself, because I was heading to Belgium for training, so my Mother had to pick it up. But I was surprised that there was such a nomination, and that they chose me. Honestly, I did not expect that.”
By the way, Zhansaya won the third place in blitz at that championship among adults in Iran.
Zhansaya Abdumalik was born in Almaty and began attending a chess school at the age of 6. She won her first trophy at a national tournament in January 2007 and has been winning prizes at chess championships ever since.
Her first big career breakthrough came at the 2008 World Youth Chess Championship where she won the gold in the U8 division 1.5 points ahead of her closest rival. She won her Woman FIDE Master (WFM) title at the U10 World Chess Championship in Porto Carras where in the strongest ever U10 age category she shared the 1st–2nd place. Her FIDE rating was 2379 as of March 2014.
Writing by Assel Satubaldina, editing by Tatyana Kuzmina
Source: http://en.tengrinews.kz
Impressive.