Deep and Harika open with easy wins

By Manuel Aaron

OROPESA, SPAIN, OCT. 22. India's best known names like Deep Sengupta and Dronavalli Harika (last year's medallists), won their first round games in style in the World Youth Chess Festival that began here on Sunday.

Delayed starts are inevitable in big tournaments. This tourney, incorporating the World under-10, 12, 14, 16 and 18 boys and girls chess championships, started after a delay of about 45 minutes. Omissions and additions of names after publication of the pairings was the cause, some Russians however, were very resentful of this.

The Indian under-16 champion, Deepan Chakravarthy, played at his brilliant best against Cominato Neto of Brazil. He got a fine attacking position with his Panov Botwinnik attack against the Caro-Kann defence. Black's defence was a bit passive. He tried to counter-attack on the Queen-side pawn structure and appeared to be successful in exchanging off white's dangerous queen. But even that position contained a lot of poison for black. With a superior king position Deepan had the advantage in the rook and knight ending.

White's king triumphantly entered the middle of the board pinning the black forces to passive defence. The Indian made a brilliant sacrifice of his rook for a knight and got two connected passed pawns on the sixth rank threatening to queen. Black gave up his rook for the two pawns leaving Deepan a knight up. But the Indian was not finished with his surprises. He sacrificed his knight to reach an easily won king and pawn ending.

In the black side of the Grunfeld defence, Dronavalli Harika, who won a silver last year in the under-10 girls section, but who is now playing in the under-12, had an easy outing against Russia's Valentina Gounina.

Deep Sengupta who won the World under-12 title last year, won quite comfortably against Spain's Comacho Jose. Himanshu Sharma, the Indian under-18 champion, got into problems with the white pieces against Philippine's Mark Paragua. The opening was a Sicilian Richter-Rauzer attack and Sharma did not appear comfortable at all. Sharma's pieces were all confined to his first three ranks in passive disarray. This was the right setting for Paragua to win a pawn and reach a rook and knight ending. Himanshu resigned on the 60th move. S. Poobesh Anand lost to Nicolos after getting into a lost position, then retrieving it and finally squandering it in a long knight versus bishop ending on the 73rd move.Sunil Rangarajan had a facile victory over Argentine Manzone Alessandro. Alessandro played the Catalan Opening and gained a space advantage. However, he handed over the advantage by inept play and Sunil seized the upper hand. To stem the tide in a rook, bishop and knight ending, Alessandro offered a knight. But Sunil disdained the knight and took a safe pawn. Sunil won in 40 moves.

Eesha Karavade scored over Valerie Maupin of France without any problems. The French girl did not use the white pieces actively and paid the price. Eesha won a pawn on the 23rd move and infiltrated her queen into the heart of white's position. The resulting pin gave Eesha a knight and the game on the 28th move.

* The results: (round one Indian results) boys under-10: Albert Geilfuss (Ger) lost to Y. Sandeep (Ind); Sankalp Modwal (Ind) drew with Th. Gobin Luwang (Ind); P.P. Prachura (Ind) bt Rentsen Erdenetulga (Mgl); Under-12: Vijay Keerthi (Ind) bt Eric Malmi (Fin); Thibaut Maenhout (Bel) lost to Abhijit Gupta (Ind); David Larino Neto (Spa) lost to G. Rohit (Ind); M. Suraj (Ind) bt Lukas Breneis (Aut); Abhishek Narain (Ind) lost to Lopez Velez (Spa); Nursultan Baltabayev (Kaz) bt R. Srinivasan (Ind); Under- 14: Comancho Joes (Spa) lost to Deep Sengupta (Ind), Sunil Rangarajan (Ind) bt Manzone Alessandro (Arg); Guerra Costa (Por) bt Samarth Modwal (Ind); Under-16: S. Poobesh Anand (Ind) lost to Nicolov (Bul); J. Deepan Chakravarthi (Ind) bt Cominato Neto (Bra); Under-18: Himanshu Sharma (Ind) lost to Mark Paragua (Phi).

Girls: under-10: Kimberly Cunanan ((Phi) bt I. Ramya Krishna (Ind); Dhyani B. Dave (Ind) bt Sabrina Reginato (Ita); Haykuhi Alesanyan (Arm) bt Akanshka Narain (Ind); Under-12: Anoori M. Shah (Ind) bt Valentina Goutor (Can); Valentina Gounina (Rus) lost to D. Harika (Ind); Anya Sun Corke (HKG) bt M. Rajadarshini (Ind); Misa Hrenic (Slo) lost to Saheli Nath (Ind); Under-14: P. Priya (Ind) bt Amina Mezioud (Alg); Valerie Maupin (Fra) lost to Eesha Karawade (Ind); Under-16: Anuradha Beniwal (Ind) lost to Alexandra Dimovska (Yug); Under-18: J.E. Kavitha (Ind) lost to Dingding Zhao (Chn).

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