Humpy jumps to sole lead

AHMEDABAD, MAY 20. Former under-10 girls' world chess champion, Koneru Humpy (AP), Nabila Farheen (TN), B.R. Kidambi (TN) and M. Rajdarshini (TN) have continued their winning spree and have emerged as sole leaders with full score of five points each in under-14 boys, under-14 girls, under-12 boys and under-12 girls categories, respectively, after five rounds in the 13th Rasna National children's chess championship being played at the Karnavati Club here today.

In under-14 boys, top-seed Humpy has proven her decision right to play in boys' section, by emerging as a sole leader by crushing Sayantan Dutta (GNCA) (4) in a marathon game of 61 moves. The game witnessed Grunfeld defence and with white pieces the top- seed obtained a strong initiative in the middle game as black (Sayantan) mishandled the position. Taking advantage of the situation, Humpy won two pawns in the middle game and later simplified the position to clinch the issue.

On second table, R. Siddharth (TN) (4.5), playing white went for Trampovsky variation against S. Rangarajan (Kar) (3.5). In the middle game black made a positional mistake with 16... Qa2, which deactivated his queen and allowed Siddharth to launch powerful king-side assault. After 32 moves black resigned as the force check-mate was impending in two moves.

In this category Humpy is leading with five points, while Siddarth and Vaibhav Saxena, who had beaten R. Vijay (Bihar), are closely following the leader with 4.5 points each.

In the under-14 girls' section, 8th-seed Nabila Farheen (TN) (5) had to fight very hard with white pieces against her State-mate M. Priyadarshini in English opening game, before winning in 61 moves. While on second table, top-seed Baisakhi Das (WB), who had lost against Nabila yesterday, opted for irregular opening against third-seed Eesha Karawade (Mah) and game ended in draw due to perpetual checks.

In this section Nabila is leading with full score of five points, while Eesha, P. Priya (TN) and Amruta Mokal are one point behind the leader.

In the under-12 boys, on top table, the game between B.R. Kidambi (TN) (white) and Shriram Sarja (Kar) tilted in favour of the former after 44 moves. In the early middle game, Kidambi and Shriram were evenly poised, but, later black offered two minor pieces for a rook by mis-judging the position and paid the penalty.

While on second board, A.A. Kore (Mah) won with white against Akash Khalwadekar (Mah) in the Sicilian Najdorf variation game. In the middle game, Akash had snatched initiative but exchanged pieces to lose the advantage, thus allowed his opponent to turn the table.

In under-12 boys, Kidambi is the front-runner with five points and Kore is on the second spot with 4.5 points, followed by six others - Deep Sengupta (Bih), S. Majumdar (Mah), A. Khamparia (MP), Rahul Sangma (Bih), Pravin Prasad (AP) and Jaydeep Dutta (WB), with four points each.

In the under-12 girls' section, on top board M. Rajdarshini (TN) scored full point against Saheli Nath (WB) by exploiting exposed king of black (Saheli) in English opening game in just 25 moves.

On second table, sixth-seed K. Nadig (Mah) had an easy prey in the form of N. Thakkar (Mah). Nadig outclassed her opponent in every department of the game to win in just 19 moves only.

With today's win Rajdarshini is on the top spot with full score of five points followed by Nadig with 4.5 points and L. Shobhana (TN), Mary Ann Gomes (GNCA), Anoori Shah (Guj), Hemlata Jeswani (Nag), T. Veennela (AP) and N. Raghvi with four points each.

The results (fifth rounds in each category):

Under-14 boys: K. Humpy (AP) (5) bt Sayantan Dutta (GNCA) (4); R. Siddharth (TN) (4.5) bt S. Rangarajan (Kar) (3.5); Vaibhav Saxena (4.5) bt R. Vijay (Bihar) (3); Somak Palit (GNCA) (3.5) drew with R. Ramprakash (TN) (3.5); D. Chakravarthy (TN) (4) bt Ayan Lahiri (WB) (3); C.N. Vaidhya (4) bt Abhijeet Gupta (Raj) (3); M. Nirmal (TN) (4) bt M. Narsimhan (TN) (3); P. Sengutpa (Bihar) (4) bt R. Muthukumaran (TN) (3); V. Srinivas (3.5) drew with Saptarshi Roy (GNCA) (3.5); Kumardip (WB) (3.5) bt R. Purohit (Guj) (3).

Under-14 girls: M. Priyadarshini (TN) (4) lost to Nabila Farheen (TN) (5); Baisakhi Das (WB) (3.5) drew with Eesha Karawade (Mah) (4); M. Kasturi (TN) (3.5) drew with R. Mahima (TN) (3.5); Laxmi Rajgopalan (TN) (3) lost to P. Priya (TN) (4); N. Vinuthana (AP) (3.5) drew with Anuradha Beniwal (Har) (3.5); Priya (Bih) (3) lost to Amruta Mokal (Mah) (4); Nimmi George (Ker) (2.5) lost to Supriya Majhi (WB) (3.5); S. Aneeqha Tahaseen (2) lost to Aswathi Balagopal (3); T. Arvinda Lochan (AP) (3) bt V. Krithika (Ch) (2); P. Sangita (TN) (3) bt Muruchanna Patnaik (Ori) (2).

Under-12 boys: B.R. Kidambi (TN) (5) bt Shriram Sarja (Kar) (4); A.A. Kore (Mah) (4.5) bt Akash Khalwadekar (Mah) (3.5); Deep Sengupta (Bih) (4) bt G. Rohit (AP) (3.5); D. Sai Srinivas (AP) (3.5) drew with S. Arun Prasad (TN) (3.5); S. Majumdar (Mah) (4) bt Bhanupratap (AP) (3); Joydipta B. (Tri) (3) lost to A. Khamparia (MP) (4); Rahul Sangma (Bih) (4) bt Debayan Majmumdar (WB) (3); Pravin Prasad (AP) (4) bt Vipul Subhashi (Bih) (3); I.R. Ranjith (TN) (3.5) drew with K. Vijaykeerthi (Kar) (3.5); Jaydeep Dutta (WB) (4) bt Sachin Kamath (Mah) (3).

Under-12 girls: M. Rajdarshini (TN) (5) bt Saheli Nath (WB) (4); K. Nadig (Mah) (4.5) bt N. Thakkar (Mah) (3.5); L. Shobhana (TN) (4) bt S. Swaminathan (Mah) (3); J. Rajsurya (TN) (3) lost to Mary Ann Gomes (GNCA) (4); Kiran M. Mohanty (Ori) (3) lost to Anoori Shah (Guj) (4); D. Harika (AP) (3) lost to Hemlata Jeswani (Nag) (4); Anjanaa N. Sowjanyaa (3) lost to T. Veennela (AP) (4); N. Raghvi (4) bt Manjari Sowani (Guj) (2.5); Sonam M. Shah (Guj) (3) drew with Priyaratnam (3); S. Parikh (Mah) (3) drew with Aditi Shah (Guj) (3).

- UNI

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