Recently, the World Chess Federation announced the March rankings. In the list of 100 top young chess players according to U20 standards, Vietnam has a representative, Dau Khuong Duy, ranked 59th with an elo rating of 2490.
At the age of 14, Khuong Duy is in the group of very few U15 players to participate in the rankings, which are for the under-20 age group, where the majority are athletes from 17 to 19 years old.
According to current regulations, the FIDE uses the U20 mark to identify the group of young chess players. However, in the context of the rapidly increasing level of athletes thanks to a systematic training system and the support of analytical technology, many international opinions proposed lowering the threshold to U18.
The reality of competition shows that many players have reached a high level right before or when they just passed adulthood.
If compared according to the U18 milestone, Vietnam's youth force is more clearly shown in quantity and quality. Currently, there are 3 international champions in this age group including Dau Khuong Duy (elo 2490), Pham Tran Gia Phuc (elo 2445) and Banh Gia Huy (elo 2436).
The International Grandmaster title requires a minimum elo of 2400 and strict achievement standards, which is the rank directly below Grandmaster in the FIDE award system.
On the international level, only a few superpowers such as the US, Russia, China and India have more young IMs than Vietnam. Germany, although ranked high in average team elo, also only has 3 IMs in the underage group and both have lower coefficients than Dau Khuong Duy.
Other strong countries such as France, Uzbekistan, Ukraine or the Netherlands currently do not exceed 2 U18 IMs, showing the significant competitive position of Vietnamese youth chess.
