Date:14/08/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/08/14/stories/2008081452872100.htm

Sport - Chess

Wins for Abhijeet and Parimarjan

NEW DELHI: Grandmasters Parimarjan Negi and Abhijeet Gupta scored timely victories to rekindle India’s medal hopes in the Open section after the 10th round of the World junior chess championship at Gaziantep, Turkey, on Tuesday.

Parimarjan, seeded 26th, crushed eighth seeded Belarus GM Sergei Zhigalko in just 27 moves after coming up with a lethal tactical combination. Minutes later, 19th seed Abhijeet joined Parimarjan on seven points after overpowering Georgian International Master Tornike Sanikidze in 40 moves.

Parimarjan and Abhijeet share the fourth spot with seven others.

The results (involving Indians): World juniors (10th round): Open: Parimarjan Negi (7) bt Sergei Zhigalko (Blr, 6); Abhijeet Gupta (7) bt Tornike Sanikidze (Geo, 6); P. Karthikeyan (6) drew with Martyen Kravtsiv (Ukr, 6); S. Arun Prasad (6) drew with Victor Laznika (Cze, 5); G. N. Gopal (6) bt Niccolo Ronchetti (Ita, 5); Deep Sengupta (6) bt Nodar Lortkipanidze (Geo, 5); Vishnu Prasanna (5.5) bt Tiberiu Georgescu (Rou, 4.5); Aswin Jayaram (5.5) bt Teodor Anton (Rou, 4.5); Vitaly Neimer (Isr, 4.5) lost to Akshayraj Kore (5.5); Miguel Angel Alvarez Ramirez (Mex, 5) bt Sahaj Grover (3.5).

Girls: Miranda Mikadze (Geo, 7.5) drew with D. Harika (8); Mariya Muzychuk (Ukr, 8) bt Soumya Swaminathan (6.5); R. Preethi (5.5) lost to Zoja Severiukhina (Rus, 6.5); Turkan Mamedjarova (Aze, 6.5) bt Kruttika Nadig (5.5); Inna Ivakhinova (Rus, 5) lost to Mary Ann Gomes (6); Madina Davletbayeva (Kaz, 5.5) bt Padmini Rout (4.5).

Acropolis International (fourth round): Athanasios Mastrovasilis (Gre, 3) bt Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury (2); Konstantinos Georgiou (Gre, 2) drew with V. Saravanan (2).