Tamil Nadu girls to the fore

By Manuel Aaron

CHENNAI, NOV. 13. Tamil Nadu girls asserted themselves emphatically in the fourth round of the Indian Oil Servo National under-18 boys & girls chess championship at the Dr Ambedkar Stadium here today.

The leaders are all from Tamil Nadu: J.E. Kavitha, Y. Prathiba and Nabeela Farheen. They have 3.5 points each. Five more rounds remain.

And, in the boys' section, with all the four leaders of the previous round drawing among themselves, seven shared the lead with 3.5 points each. The leaders are Arghyadip Das, R.R. Laxman, Himanshu Sharma, P. Mageshchandran, Poobesh Anand, Prathamesh Mokal and R.S. Prasanna.

The defending champion, P. Mageshchandran (Ramalinga) escaped with a draw against Himanshu Sharma of Haryana. The Haryana player took the advantage in the opening and built on it in the middle-game but frittered it away in a rook ending.

The top board game between Arghyadip Das of Goodricke Chess Academy and R.R. Laxman was a Sicilian Rossolimo. After the early exchange of queens the game was drawn in a rook ending where both players missed some chances.

Important results (fourth round):

Girls: Soumya Swaminathan (Mah) 3 lost to J.E. Kavitha (TN) 3.5; Y. Prathiba (TN) 3.5 bt Amruta Mokal (Mah) 2.5; S. Ramya (Pondy) 2.5 lost to Nabeela Farheen (TN) 3.5; H. Nilavoli (TN) 2.5 drew with P. Sumathi (TN) 2.5; M. Kasturi (TN) 2 lost to P. Priya (TN) 3; K. Prajeesha (Ker) 2 lost to N. Sandhya (Ker) 3; Priya (Bhr) 1.5 lost to Baisakhi Das (WB) 2.5; Anuradha Beniwal (Har) 2.5 bt Anuprita Patil (Mah) 1.5; C.V. Rajalakshmi (CCI) 2.5 bt E. Lakshmi (Kar) 1.5; P. Malarselvi (TN) 2 bt P. Uthra (TN) 1.5.

Boys: Arghyadip Das (Goodricke) 3.5 drew with R.R. Laxman (TN) 3.5; Himanshu Sharma (Har) 3.5 drew with P. Mageshchandran (TN) 3.5; M.R. Venkatesh (TN) 2.5 lost to Poobesh Anand (Vara) 3.5; R. Uttam Sharma (TN) 2.5 lost to Prathamesh Mokal (Mah) 3.5; R. Preetham Sharma (TN) 2 lost to R.S. Prasanna (TN) 3.5; J. Deepan Chakravarthy (TN) 3 bt R. Siddarth (TN) 2; Bharat Gupta (Raj) 2 lost to S.R. Mishra (Ori) 3; Sudhir K. Sinha (Bhr) 3 bt Vijay Keerthi (Kar) 2; Ram S. Krishnan (Capa) 3 bt R. Muthukumaran (TNgr) 2; C. Praveen Kumar (TN) 3 bt Sachin Soni (MP) 2; Rahul Sangma (Bhr) 3 bt Pradip Ghosh (WB) 1.5; Ranvir Bhatti (MP) 1.5 lost to J.M. Utarid (Kar) 2.5; T.S. Pradeep (Kar) 2 drew with Kukku Ramesh (Ker) 2; G. Rohit (AP) 2.5 bt V. Haribalu (TN) 1.5; K. Anbazhagan (Pondy) 2.5 bt M.K. Narasimhan (TN) 1.5; Piyush Roy (Ori) 2 drew with K. Phanindra Reddy (TN) 1.5.

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