Date:21/08/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/08/21/stories/2008082155762100.htm

Sport - Chess

Krithikha, two others in lead

Arvind Aaron

CHENNAI: Woman FIDE Master Pon N. Krithikha of Modern School is among the three leaders with full five points in the first Modern School FIDE-rating chess tournament, being played at Nanganallur, in Chennai on Wednesday.

Krithikha, a 12th standard student, played the Alekhine defence with black and won with a counter-attack against Ramalingam Karthik of Salem in 42 moves. She leads the 230-player tournament jointly with the top two seeds, Shyam P. Nikhil of Nagercoil and S. Nitin of Salem.

The top seed Nikhil had a better day playing against the fragmented pawns of Tejas Ravichandran in a rook and minor pieces ending to register a 65-move win.

Second seed Nitin of Sri Saradha Matriculation Balamandir (Salem) obtained an edge before outplaying G. Akash of Chennai with black in 39 moves.

Important results: Round five: Shyam Nikhil 5 bt Tejas Ravichandran 4, G. Akash 4 lost to S. Nitin 5, Ramalingam Karthik 4 lost to Pon N. Krithikha 5, Santhosh Kumar 4 drew with Ramnath Bhuvanesh 4, Dusthageer Ibrahim 4.5 bt B. Sekar 3.5, S. Siddharth 3.5 lost to Anwesh Upadhyaya 4.5, N. Surendran 4.5 bt N. Aadityan 3.5, Ch. Divyasri 4.5 bt R. Ganesh 3.5, Bavankumar 4.5 bt K.C. Krishna Prasad 3.5.

Round four: J. Arun lost to Shyam Nikhil, S. Nitin bt Niranjan Navalgund, G. Akash bt Pradeep Kumar, Pon N. Krithikha bt D.S. Shashaank.