Deep Sengupta back on top

By Manuel Aaron

OROPESA, OCT. 21. The ninth round of the roller coaster World Youth chess festival threw Deep Sengupta back into sole lead in the World under-12 boys' section, but pushed Koneru Humpy into second slot in the under-14 girls'.

However, in the under-10 girls', Dronavalli Harika is hot on the tail of the Chinese leader Zhong Yi Tan. She is in clear second place, half a point behind Tan. In this section, V.K. Sindhu has faint chances of a medal. Only two rounds remain. Today is the last free day of the tournament.

Deep Sengupta had a difficult task quelling the resistance from Ukraine's Adam Tukayev. In the white side of a Sicilian Defence he boldly went for the win of black's b-pawn. Tukayev fought back tactically to make Deep pay for the pawn. But after the skirmish Deep escaped unscathed with a clear extra pawn.

Later Deep had two ways of winning yet another pawn. Unfortunately he chose the weaker alternative and black seized the initiative though he was two pawns down. Deep had to pull his wits together to keep his king intact in the queen, rook and bishop middle-game. When the queens were exchanged off, black was able to pull back one pawn. Black exchanged the rooks as well to reach an opposite colour bishop ending with a pawn minus.

Normally this should have been a draw. But Deep was very familiar with this kind of ending and played it with masterly precision. The black king and bishop were unable to handle the two white pawns on distant files while his only pawn was effectively blockaded by the white bishop. Tukayev resigned on the 44th move.

Akshayraj Kore had a very interesting game against Evgeny Romanov of Russia. He gave up his rook for knight and two pawns with exciting play. The game became wild and complicated with Romanov doubling his rook and queen along white's base rank and threatening mate. Kore had to give up a knight and suddenly Romanov had queen, rook and no pawns against Kore's queen and five pawns, three connected pawns on the king-side and two on the queen side. Here, Romanov himself proposed a draw and the game ended on the 52nd move. If they had continued, anything could have happened.

Humpy's defeat against the Colombian girl Carolina Ortiz was most unexpected and shocking. It was incredible that after beating the best of Europe, Humpy should slump against a South American, that too with the white pieces. Nana Dzagnidze of Georgia, who has trailed Humpy so far, took advantage of Humpy's defeat to jump into first place. In the last World under-12 girls, Dzagnidze had won gold and Humpy, silver.

Humpy made a number of small errors beginning with a2- a4 when just out of her double fianchetto opening. The mistakes were uncharacteristic of Humpy. She was on the receiving side of small skirmishes and black had an edge for the major part of the game. When they reached a double rook ending, Humpy just managed material equality, but her positional disadvantage became more pronounced as black's rooks were actively posted. Ortiz rapidly pushed her connected passed pawns down the queen-side while Humpy could not get her f-pawn proceed beyond f5. Humpy resigned when black made sure of queening her a-pawn.

Once again, Harika had an easy victory. Anna Muzychuk of Ukraine played the Leningrad Dutch and had an awful hole at e6. The white knights pranced through black's weak squares and exchanged themselves for the bishops. With blacks fianchettoed king's bishop off the board, white's dark square bishop took control of the long black diagonal. With a heavy king-side attack Harika won two pawns and reached a minor piece ending which she won on the 49th move.

This tournament is a forgettable washout for International Master Harikrishna. He drew yet again, his sixth draw. And he was lucky to draw. In a wild game of fluctuating fortunes, Jan Bernasek of the Czech Republic accepted Harikrishna's draw offer when he had a rook, bishop and pawn against rook and pawn. The reason was that Harikrishna had lots of time on his clock while Bernasek had only 90 seconds left for all the remaining moves of the game.

Zviad Izoria of Georgia has won the under-16 with two rounds to spare. In the under-18, Grandmaster Vallejo Pons of Spain, who was leading till now, was defeated by David Navarra of the Czech Republic. Now Pons jointly leads this category with Navarra and Cuba's Dominguez.

The results:

Girls: Under-10: D. Harika 7.5 bt Anna Muzychuk (Ukr) 6.5; V.K. Sindhu 6 drew with Ana Baptista (Por).

Under-12: Yelizaveta Potapova (Ltu) lost to Iswarya Shobana 5.5; Valentina Gounina bt Kruttika Nadig 4.5.

Under-14: K. Humpy 7 lost to Carolina Ortiz (Col) 7; Qian Huang

(Chn) bt Eesha Karavade 6; Tania Sachdev 5 bt Plazaola (Arg); Claire Bleazard (South Africa) bt Nabeela Farheen 3.

Under16: Shraddha Samani 5 bt Espinola Martin (Spa).

Under-18: J.E. Kavitha 4 drew with Anne Marie Charbonneau (Can).

Boys: Under-10: Wang Puchen (Nzl) bt Dasari Sai Srinivas 5; M. Abhinav 6 drew with Ildar Hairroline (Rus).

Under-12: Deep Sengupta 7.5 bt Adam Tukayev (Ukr) 6; Zheng Xuancheng (Chn) bt Abhijeet Gupta 5; Akshayraj Kore 6 drew with Evgeny Romanov (Rus).

Under-14: P. Harikrishna 6 drew with Jan Bernasek (Cze); Antonio Lopez (Spa) bt Saptarshi Roy 5; Deward Niemandt (S.Africa) bt Himanshu Kumar 3.

Under-16: Ibarra Jerez (Spa) bt Yashpal Singh Sonwani 4.

Under-18: Henrikas Asauskas (Ltu) drew with P. Mageshchandran 4.5.

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