Yang Shen emerges sole leader

By Manuel Aaron

OROPESA, OCT 31. The World Under-12 girls chess championship has become the most tantalising event for India in the World Youth Chess Festival now drawing to a close at Oropesa, Spain. With only two rounds to go, Dronavalli Harika of India was defeated in the ninth round. Her joint leader of the previous round, Yang Shen of China is now in sole lead with 7.5 points. But Saheli Nath is now half a point behind Yang Shen. Saheli beat the third seed, Anna Muzychuk of Ukraine, and is now in joint second place with China's Shuyu Ding who beat Harika.

Last year's World Under-12 champion, Deep Sengupta met his third International Master in the tournament but was beaten.Vijay Keerthi reached 6.5 points and has some theoretical chances of a medal. His Lithuanian opponent played very weakly. When Vijay was building up a king-side attack along the h-file Pileckis did not challenge the white queen and just shifted a rook back and forth along his first rank. When threatened with unavoidable mate he gave up on the 38th move.

In the Under-10 girls section, Dhyani Dave was beaten by Mariya Muzychuk of Ukraine and lost her chances of a medal.

Along with Harika, the other three Andhra players here, G. Rohit, Y. Sandeep and I. Ramya Krishna were also defeated in this round.

The Indian Under-18 girls champion, J. E. Kavitha had scored only two points from her first six rounds. But she has won the next three rounds in a row.

Deepan Chakravarthy and Sunil Rangarajan had impressive victories in the Under-16 and Under-14 categories.

Leaders' and Indian results of round 9: Under-12 boys: Karyakin (Hun) 7 drew Szabo (Hun) 7; Andreikine (Rus) 7.5 bt Haoyu Li (Chn) 6; Khairoulline (Rus) 6.5 drew Vachier-Lagrave (Fra) 7; Rohit (Ind) 5.5 lost to Leon Hoyos (Mex) 6.5; Bonet (Fra) 6.5 bt M.Suraj (Ind) 5.5; Vijay Keerthi (Ind) 6.5 bt Pileckis (Ltu) 5.5; Bachman (Par) 5.5 drew Abhijit Gupta (Ind) 5.5; Skjoldan (Den) 4 lost to R. Srinivasan 5; Abhishek Narain (Ind) 3 drew Ladron de Guevara (Esp).

Under-14 girls: Mongontuul (Mon) 8 lost to Zawadzka (Pol) 6; Salome Melia (Geo) 7.5 bt Fominykh (Rus) 7; Eesha Karawade (Ind) 5.5 bt Sandra Krege (Ger); Laura Ross (USA) 5 drew P.Priya (Ind) 5.

Under-14 boys: Viktor Erdos (Hun) 8 bt Tomashevsky (Rus) 6.5; Wojtaszek (Pol) 7 drew Megaranto (Indo) 6.5; Bluvshtein (Can) 6 lost to Nakamura (USA) 7; Gonda (Hun) 7 bt Brkic (Cro) 6; Deep Sengupta (Ind) 5.5 lost to Zavgorodn (Ukr) 6.5; Sunil Rangarajan (Ind) 6 bt Bellaiche (Fra) 5; Camacho Collados (Esp) 2 lost to Samarth Modwal (Ind) 3.

Under-16 girls: Joanna Worek (Pol) 6.5 drew Nana Dzagnidze (Geo) 8; Vozovik (Ukr) 8 bt Thanh Tu Le (Vie) 6; Anuradha Beniwal (Ind) 5 drew Mescheriakova (Rus) 5.

Under-16 boys: Heberla (Pol) 7 drew Alekxeev (Rus) 7; Korobov (Ukr) 7 drew Mamedov (Aze) 6.5; J. Deepan Chakravarthi (Ind) 5.5 bt Contreras Torres (Mex) 4.5; Louw (S.A) 4 lost to Poobesh Anand 5.

Under-18 girls: Zigangirova (Kaz) 5.5 lost to Gvetadze (Geo) 8.5; Calotescu (Rom) 8 bt Partac (Mdv) 5.5; J. E. Kavitha (Ind) 5 bt Hodova (Cze) 4.

Under-18 boys: Timofeev (Rus) 7.5 bt Iakovenko (Rus) 7; Werle (Ned) 7 bt Naiditsch (Ger) 6; Izoria (Geo) 7 bt Jakubowski (Pol) 6; Schneider (USA) 6 bt Himanshu Sharma (Ind) 5.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Sport
Previous : T.N., Kerala bag titles
Next     : Another feather in Humpy's cap