Finland was the surprising overall winner at the 2025 Nordic Youth Championship. The Finnish players started with a bang in the first round on the first day achieving 9,5 points out of the first 10 games. They barely stepped on the brake after that and produced the winner in two age groups as well as getting four more podium finishes! Overall Finland went home with +500 rating points combined overall in what must be their best Nordic Youth Championship ever!
Let’s have a look at the groups one by one.
A-group U20
The top seed Aleksandr Domalchuk-Jonasson led before the final day and it’s was all business from him on the final day as he won both games and ended up the sole leader with 5,5 points. Luitjen Apol Axelsson had chance before the last round but Aleksandr was up to the task.
In the 5th round, Aleksandr had a short miniature.
After an early mistake by white, 14…Nc2! produced maximum punishment! The incoming check on c5 is simply devastating and from c2 a check on e1 is sneaky as seen in the game!
Early on in the last round it didn’t look like Luijten would fight with Aleksandr for the top spot.
11.Bc5! forced Luijten to sacrifice his Queen for insufficient compensation but he managed to turn things around!
The podium finishers:
B-group U17
The B-group was quite tense and Norwegian #4 seed William Alexander Olsen had to sweat the last game of the tournament where Finnish to #2 seed Aku Salonen had to win with black against local Mikael Bjarki Heidarsson. Aku managed the win and just crawled ahead of William on tiebreaks.
Aku’s win against William in the 5th round was key. Aku ground down the Norwegian with fine positional play, squeezing him like peak Petrosian until black lost a stranded knight on h4 while being almost pushed off the board by white’s strong play.
C-group U15
A 5th round encounter was also major key in the C-group. Finnish player Eli Asikainen had been having a fantastic tournament and faced top seed Evsuld Myagmasuren. In the end, a fatal mistake would decide the Nordic Championship.
Evsuld had been trying to grind down a win in an equal rook endgame but white had defended until 35.c4?? turned the tables. Careless by white as 35.Ke3 should draw rather easily.
D-group U13
The D-group remarkably also was decided in the 5th round. Finnish player Radmir Vorobyov had been on fire but he was finally stopped in this round and eventually overtaken by Norwegian Isai Sivaparan.
Again the pawn endgame decided.
White managed to simplify to a winning pawn endgame here after 42.Nxg6! Rxe5 43.Rxe5 Rxe5 44.Nxe5+ Ke6 and then 45.Nxc4 and white converted.
E-group U11
The E-group had a convincing winner as Finnish player Zhang Yiming was a point clear of the field with 5,5 points. Zhang’s only draw came in the final round.
Many thanks to Thor Kvakkestad for providing pictures from the event!
