Date:28/06/2003 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2003/06/28/stories/2003062804021800.htm

Sport - Chess

Dzagnidze beats Harika, extends lead

By Our Chess Correspondent

Chennai June 27. Nana Dzagnidze of Georgia extended her lead with a marathon 86-move victory over Dronavalli Harika in the fifth round of the World junior girls chess championship at Nakhichevan in Azerbaijan on Thursday.

Nana, who won in a rook and pawn ending, now has full five points. The Andhra girl never had a chance but offered a good resistance against her much stronger opponent before going down.

Harika, Tania Sachdev and Eesha Karavade are amongst the players who are tied for the second spot on 3.5 points.

A stroke of luck helped Tania inflict a 37-move defeat on Shahana Agaeva. A serious 35th move blunder by the Azerbaijani girl helped Tania spot a tactical finish blending the themes of decoy, back rank and attraction in one combination.

Saheli Nath held high rated Melhriban Shukurova of Azerbaijan to a draw by repetition after losing a pawn in a pin and fighting back. Eesha scored a crushing win over Luciana Morales in 27 moves.

Drawn games were the order of the day in the seventh round in the boys section and lead positions remained unchanged.

Kadir Guseinov of Azerbaijan is on top with 5.5 points from seven games. In the second place are Surya Sekhar Ganguly and others with five points. Pentyala Harikrishna, with 4.5 points, is in the next points group.

Thursday was one of the bad days for the dozen Indians. The boys had three defeats, three draws and a win, while the girls did better by winning and losing two games apiece and making one draw. Six rounds remain to be played.

Title aspirants Ganguly and Harikrishna had quiet draws. Ganguly surrendered his isolated queen pawn to fight back and force a draw against the higher rated Vugar Gashimov of Azerbaijan.

Harikrishna won white's king pawn but could not keep it to make a 58-move draw with the black pieces against Marcin Dziuba who is rated 113 Elo points below him.

Gogineni Rohit showed that he was tactically alert in 55-move victory over Steven Geinaert of Belgium with the black pieces.

Rohit's play flowed naturally after a sound opening and sharp middle-game from the Sicilian dragon. He is on four points and has recovered from an indifferent start.

The results:

Boys (round seven): Kadir Guseinov (Aze) 5.5 drew with Alexander Zubov (Ukr) 5, Shakriyaz Mamedyarov (Aze) 5 drew with Zviad Izoria (Geo) 5, Surya Sekhar Ganguly 5 drew with Vugar Gashimov (Aze) 5, Marcin Dziuba (Pol) 4.5 drew with Pentyala Harikrishna 4.5, Meelin Kanep (Est) 4.5 bt S. Arun Prasad 3.5, Giga Kuparadze (Geo) 4.5 bt P. Mahesh Chandran 3.5, Andrei Kozak (Uzb) 3.5 drew with J. Deepan Chakravarthy 3.5, Marco Pacheco (Per) 4 bt Abhijeet Gupta 3, Steven Geinaert (Bel) 3 lost to Gogineni Rohit 4.

Girls (round five): Nana Dzagnidze (Geo) 5 bt Dronavalli Harika 3.5, Meihriban Shukurova (Aze) 3 drew with Saheli Nath 3, Shahana Agaeva (Aze) 2.5 lost to Tania Sachdev 3.5, Eesha Karavade 3.5 bt Luciana Morales (Per) 2.5, Rajmohan Mahima 1.5 lost to Ioulia Makka (Gre) 2.5.