Date:22/11/2004 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2004/11/22/stories/2004112202631900.htm

Sport - Chess

Aggressive Petrosian surprises Berkes

By Stan Rayan

KOCHI, NOV. 21. He is named after one of the legends of the 64-square game. On Sunday, Armenian Tigran Petrosian lived up to the name by stunning the boys' top seed Ferenc Berkes in the World junior chess championship at the Casino Hotel here.

The attacking 40-move victory, in Tarrasch Defence, gave the fourth-seeded Petrosian the lead after the fourth round. With four points, he has only India's P. Harikrishna, the second seed, for company.

"I was born just a month after the former world champion Tigran Petrosian's death. That's how I got this name," said the Armenian Grandmaster. But unlike his famous namesake, he plays a very aggressive game.

Playing black, Petrosian turned down the offer of a draw on the 23rd move and triumphed with a powerful king-side attack. Hungarian Berkes had lost the edge earlier with a pawn blunder on the 15th move.

Petrosian was very cautious about his chances against Harikrishna, his next big rival. "To play Hari in India is very difficult. But nothing is impossible," he said.

Harikrishna, also playing black, was in fine nick today, winning against Swede Hans Tikkanen comfortably in 40 moves of Bogo Indian.

Former Asian junior champion Deepan Chakravarthy was another impressive Indian, surprising seventh-seeded Uzbek Grandmaster Timur Gareyev with a lethal king-side attack.

While the boys' section produced decisive results on all the top ten boards, three of the top five boards in the girls section ended in draws. Four players — Poland's Joanna Madjan, China's Zhang Jilin and Woman GMs Elisabeth Paehtz (Germany) and Anna Ushenina (Ukraine) were at the top of the pack after fourth round.

The results (fourth round, Indians unless stated): Boys: Ferenc Berkes (Hun, 3 pts) lost to Tigran Petrosian (Arm, 4); Hans Tikkanen (Swe, 3) lost to P. Harikrishna (4); Evgeny Alekseev Vladimirovich (Rus, 3.5) bt Yunieski Quezada Perez (Cub, 2.5); Radoslaw Wojtaszek (Pol, 3.5) bt Jianu Vlad-Cristian (Rom, 2.5); Abhijeet Gupta (2.5) lost to Mark Paragua (Phi, 3.5); Zhe Quan (Can, 2.5) lost to Erwin l'Ami (Ned, 3.5); Deepan Chakravarthy (3) bt Timur Gareev (Uzb, 2); Artem Iljin (Rus, 3) bt Poobesh Anand (Ind, 2); Zhao Jun (Chn, 3) bt Lorin A. R. D'costa (Eng 2);

Koneru Humpy (3) bt Johannes Manyedi (RSA, 2); Stanislav Cifka (Cze, 2) lost to M. R. Venkatesh (3); David Smerdon (Aus, 3) bt C. V. Balaji Raghuram (2); Jan Smeets (Ned) lost to Leandro Perdomo (Arg, 3); Elshan Moradiabadi (Ira, 2.5) bt G. N. Gopal (1.5); Deep Sengupta (2.5) bt Anastasios Mihailidis (Gre, 1.5).

Girls: Joanna Majdan (Pol, 3.5) drew with Anna Ushenina (Ukr, 3.5); Zhang Jilin (Chn, 3.5) bt N. Vinuthna (2.5); Alina Motoc (Rom, 2) lost to Elisabeth Paehtz (Ger, 3.5); Ekaterina Korbut (Rus, 2.5) drew with Siti Zulaikha (Mas, 2.5); J. E. Kavitha (2.5) drew with Eesha Karavade (2.5); Aleksandra Mijovic (SCG, 2) lost to Anastasiya Gutsko (Ukr, 3); Dana Aketayeva (Kaz, 3) bt Meenu Rajendran (2); Tania Sachdev (2.5) bt Shaesteh Pour Ghader (Ira, 2); Marties Bensdorp (Ned, 1.5) lost to Kruttika Nadig (2.5); Arlette Van Weersel (Ned, 2.5) bt I. Ramyakrishna (1.5); Koneru Chandra Hawsa (2.5) bt Nimmy George (1.5); Paloma Gutierrez (Esp, 1.5) drew with C. Delphin (2); N. Raghavi (2) bt Alexandra Stiri (Gre, 1); P. Sivasankari (1) lost to Saheli Nath (2); N. Sandhya (.5) lost to Shobana L. Iswarya (2).