Maheshchandran is champion; Kavitha pips Prathiba

By Manuel Aaron

JAMSHEDPUR, APRIL 14. Tamil Nadu's P. Maheshchandran (Ramalinga) and J.E. Kavitha (Christ King Girls School, Tambaram) won the 10th National under-18 boys and girls chess championships respectively, organised by the Bihar Chess Academy today.

Within a few minutes of the start of the ninth and final round, Maheshchandran emerged champion as he quickly drew against Abhishek Srivastava of Rajasthan to reach 7.5 points, an unassailable lead. Maheshchandran pocketed Rs. 6750 for his effort.

In a major upset, J.E. Kavitha, who was in second place at the end of the penultimate round, scored over tournament leader Y. Prathiba to take the title. Kavitha took home the first prize of Rs. 5,000 and will now represent India at the World under-18 girls' championship later this year at Oropesa.

It was at Oropesa Aarthie Ramaswamy created history by winning the World under-18 girls' title last year.

Playing a little known variation of the French (1 e4 e6 2 d4 d5 3 Nc3 Nf6 4 e5 Ne4) Prathiba was quickly in trouble as this variation was nothing new to Kavitha. The two had actually played the same variation in an earlier tournament. But the opening by itself was not enough for Kavitha to win. Prathiba continued to make errors which her opponent exploited effortlessly.

Prathiba chokes again

When the players reached an opposite colour bishop ending where Prathiba was two pawns down, a draw could still be salvaged. But Kavitha played the ending with great imagination and sacrificed her bishop to advance her two connected passed pawns on the queen-side. Prathiba had to give up her bishop for these two pawns, but in the resultant position with equal material, the white king was closer to the king-side where both players were left with three pawns each. Kavitha's king was quick while capturing all pawns, and advanced her last pawn to the eighth rank. Prathiba resigned on the 58th move.

It was clearly not Prathiba's day. And this is not the first National championship where she has choked at the finish. In three earlier National sub-junior girls' championships, she has finished runner-up after failing to win crucial games. With this second place finish in the National under-18, Prathiba becomes India's most celebrated runner-up.

Both Maheshchandran and Kavitha had won the National sub-junior championships in their categories in 1996-1997 and had represented India at Yerevan, Armenia. They also have a common coach, V. Hariharan, the official coach of the Tamil Nadu team here. Hariharan was a very happy man indeed with his daughter Nilavoli's third place finish an icing on the cake.

Nilavoli played with great determination against teammate M. Priyadarshini. She played a tactical game to outwit her rival. Priya refused to give up easily and was checkmated only on the 87th move. Incidentally, this was the last game of this championship.

Kidambi finished third as he failed to beat Pranjal Das of West Bengal. With the white pieces he had a very promising attacking position, but it petered out into a drawn rook ending. Prathamesh Mokal of Maharashtra took the second place with a spirited victory over last year's champion Valay Parikh of Gujarat.

Top standings:

Boys: 1. P. Maheshchandran (TN) 7.5; 2. Prathamesh Mokal (Mah) 7; 3-4 S. Kidambi (TN), Abhishek Srivastava (Raj) 6.5; 5-12 Valay Parikh (Guj), Arjun Uberoi (Mah), J.M. Utarid (Kar), Arghyadip Das (Goodricke), Pranjal Das (WB), R. Preetham Sharma (TN), Rahul Shandilya (Bih), Himanshu Sharma (Har) 6; 13-15 Kumardeep Chakraborty (WB), R. Naveen (TN) and Deep Sengupta (Bih) 5.5.

Girls: 1. J.E. Kavitha (TN) 7; 2-3 Y. Prathiba (TN), H. Nilavoli (Capa) 6.5; 4-6 Baisakhi Das (WB), Anuradha Beniwal (Har), N. Sandya (Ker) 6; 7-11 C.V. Rajalakshmi (TN), B. Latha (TN), Malwika Singh (Bih), R. Mahima (TN) 5.5; 12- 16 K. Prajeesha (Ker), M. Priyadarshini (TN), Ananya Sarkar (WB), Supriya Maji (WB) and Alka Das (Bih) 5.

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