Date:08/08/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/08/08/stories/2008080857772000.htm

Sport - Chess

Draws keep Harika, Mary in second spot

NEW DELHI: For the second successive day, top seed D. Harika and compatriot Mary Ann Gomes shared the second spot after the top six boards produced draws in the girls’ section of the World junior chess championship at the Turkish town of Gaziantep on Wednesday.

The fifth round saw Harika play out a draw with leader Tataev Abrahamyan and Mary sign peace with second seed Mariya Muzychuk. On this day, all Indian girls remained undefeated.

Among the Indian boys, Abhjeet Gupta moved to 3.5 points after beating teammate Ashwin Jayaram while S. Arun Prasad reached a similar tally after overpowering lowly rated Georgian rival Nodar Lortkipanidze.

Grandmasters G. N. Gopal and Parimarjan Negi, playing black, were held by lower-rated rivals.

All Indians among leaders

In the Badalona International at Badalona in Spain, all three Indians — P. Magesh Chandran, S. Kidambi and P. Konguvel — shared the lead with four others at five points after six rounds.

The results (involving Indians):

World junior championship:

Open (fifth round): Tiberiu Georgescu (Rou, 3) drew with G. N. Gopal (3); Abhijeet Gupta (3.5) bt Aswin Jayaram (2.5); David Kalashian (Arm, 3) drew with Parimarjan Negi (3); S. Arun Prasad (3.5) bt Nodar Lortkipanidze (Geo, 2.5); Akshayraj Kore (3) drew with Ioannis Papadopoulos (Gre, 3); Oleg Yaksin (Rus, 2.5) drew with Deep Sengupta (2.5); Bahruz Rzayev (Aze, 2.5) drew with P. Karthikeyan (2.5); Ozge Vural (Tur, 1) lost to Vishnu Prasanna (2); Sahaj Grover (2) bt Atsuhiko Kobayashi (Jpn, 1).

Girls (fifth round): Tataev Abhrahamyan (USA, 4.5) drew with D. Harika (4); Mary Ann Gomes (4) drew with Mariya Muzychuk (Ukr, 4); Khayala Isgandarova (Aze, 3.5) drew with Padmini Rout (3.5); Deimante Daulyte (Ltu, 2.5) lost to Kruttika Nadig (3.5); Keti Tsatsalashvili (Ge, 2.5) lost to R. Preethi (3.5); Maria Ikonomopoulou (Gre, 2) lost to Soumya Swaminathan (3).

Badalona International (sixth round): P. Magesh Chandran (5) drew with P. Konguvel (5); S. Kidambi (5) drew with Lars Karlsson (Swe, 5).

Kavala International (eighth round): M. Milos Pavlovic (Srb, 5) drew with S. Satyapragyan (5); V. Saravanan (5) bt Davit Jojua (Geo, 4); Panagiotis Dagkakis (Gre, 5) bt Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury (3.5); Prathamesh Mokal (4.5) bt Nikolaos Sidiropoulos (Gre, 3.5).