Koneru Humpy snatches sole lead

By Manuel Aaron

OROPESA (SPAIN), OCT. 15. Koneru Humpy jumped into sole lead in the World under-14 girls chess championship as the Indian contingent continued to do well in the World Youth Chess Festival.

This festival decides the World chess champions in the age categories of under-10, 12, 14, 16 and 18 for boys & girls. Seven more rounds remain in this 11-round Swiss system tournament. Today is a free day for the players.

Three other Indians are in joint lead: Dronavalli Harika shares the lead with Zhong Yi Tan of China in the under-10 girls and Deep Sen Gupta with Sergei Zhigalko of Belarus in the under-12 boys. They have won all their four games. And in the under-16 girls, Shraddha Samani shares the lead with seven other girls, each having 3.5 points.

Bank of Baroda sponsored Koneru Humpy surprisingly and quickly overcame the Chinese girl Quien Huang. She positionally outplayed the Chinese and had a couple of extra pawns in the ending forcing capitulation.

Eesha Karawade did a good turn for Humpy and herself by holding Nana Dzagnidze of Georgia to a draw on the second board. In the last World under-12 girls, Dzagnidze had beaten Humpy and taken the world title.

With the black pieces, Harika played the French Defence against Alena Tairova of Belarus. Tairova skirted theory by exchanging pawns on the third move. Yet, Harika won a pawn on the 16th move and then nursed it to the ending with careful play. When she won a second pawn on the 55th move, Tairova could have given up the game. But she went on playing till she was mated on the 69th move.

In the under-12 boys' section, the Indians are doing specially well. On the first, second and sixth tables three Indians were sitting. On the second table, Deep Sengupta accounted for Romania's Daniel Baratosi in an attacking game. He played the exchange variation in the Ruy Lopez and seemed to get no advantage. However, he was superior to the Romanian in middle- game tactics. Deep had castled short while Baratosi had castled on the queen-side. The Romanian's pawn-storm on the king-side turned out to be just a gesture as Deep outwitted him with some very sharp tactics and won a pawn. Unable to stand the pressure, Baratosi offered his rook for a bishop, but Deep disdained to grab that rook. He brought the bishop to the king-side to bear down on black's castled position for a deadly mating attack. He won the game on the 34th move.

On the second table, Abhijeet Gupta who was in the joint lead till the previous round was held to a draw by Rauf Mamedov of Azerbaijan. Against the Samisch Attack in the Kings Indian Defence, Mamedov sacrificed a knight for two pawns and active lay. Gupta failed to carry out several winning possibilities. He was forced to give back his extra knight for the Azeri's passed pawns and the game was drawn in an equal rook ending. Gupta left the hall in tears, and many, including his father, had assumed that he had lost the game.

On the sixth table, Akshayraj Kore stumbled against Egypt's Bassem Amin and only drew.

The most unexpected joint leader from India was in the girls' under-16 category. With the black pieces, unassuming, quiet, bespectacled Shraddha Samani, seeded 53rd, defeated 13th seeded Svetlana Cherednichenko of Ukraine. She was helped into the lead by the top three boards ending in drawn games.

Samani played a very patient, stubborn game to win the full point after six hours of play. Cherednichenko burnt her boats on the queen side by going for an all out attack against Samani's king.

For a major part of the game the black king appeared to be a candidate for slaughter, but on the 28th turn, Samani produced a brilliant bishop move that forced the win of a white rook for a bishop. In desperation the Ukraine girl walked her king in the midst of queens and rooks into the h5 square in a last ditch effort to mate the black king. Samani saw through white's plans and played the game with extreme care and imagination for a well deserved victory.

Harikrishna suffered a setback when he was held to a draw by Hikaru Nakamura of America. After the game Harikrishna confessed that he got a bad position from the opening and was lucky that his draw offer was accepted by Nakamura.

The results (only Indian):

Girls: Alena Tairova (Belarus) lost to D.Harika 4; V.K.Sindhu 3 bt Vanessa Feliciano (Brazil); Iswarya Shobana 2.5 drew with Eleanora Ambrosi (Ita); Kruttika Nadig 2 bt Poppy Aarons (Eng); K.Humpy 4 bt Qian Huang (Chn); Nana Dzagnidze (Geo) drew with Eesha Karawade 3; Nadiya Thashimova (Kaz) drew with Tania Sachdev 2; Nabeela Farheen 1.5 drew with Kristina Solic (Cro); Svetlana Cherednichenko (Ukr) lost to Shraddha Samani 3.5; R.Hammond (Wls) lost to J.E.Kavitha 2.

Boys: Akmal Husanbaev (Uzb) lost to D.Sai Srinivas 3; Alex Cuevas (Arg) lost to M.Abhinav 3; Abhijeet Gupta 3.5 drew with Rauf Mamedov (Aze) 3.5; Deep Sengupta 4 bt Daniel Baratosi (Rom); Bassem Amin (Egy) drew with Akshayraj Kore 3; Hikaru Nakamura (USA) drew with P.Harikrishna 3; Saptarshi Roy 3 bt Lev Milman (USA); Himanshu Kumar 1 drew with Jacob Glud (Den) 1; Konsta Kapanen (Fin) bt Y.S.Sonwani 1; Andrey Volokitin (Ukr) bt P.Mageshchandran 2.

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