Date:15/12/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/12/15/stories/2008121555041900.htm

Sport

Ashwin and Mary are champions

Arvind Aaron

— Photo: M. Vedhan

PROUD MOMENT: Mary Ann Gomes and Ashwin Jayaram with Viswanathan Anand.

CHENNAI: Ashwin Jayaram of Chennai and Mary Ann Gomes of Kolkata won the Sri Sai Ram Engineering Asian junior chess championship that concluded here at the Hotel Vijay Park on Sunday.

Ashwin was relegated to second on tie-break last year but the tie-break was kind to him this time around. He and Lalith Babu of Vijayawada finished tied for the title on 7.5 points from nine rounds.

National junior champion Lalith finished second and was awarded the International Master title.

Ashwin is already an International Master. He was awarded a 9-game Grand Master norm for his title triumph here. He had already made a GM norm at Sort in Spain in 2007.

He now needs a third norm for the GM title.

In the game between the only two undefeated players, Ashwin spotted a rook for bishop sacrifice to win pawns. In the ensuing time pressure, Ashwin released his grip on the game by exchanging the queens and Vidit Gujrathi fought back to earn a draw.

“I voluntarily played with lot of risk in the last rounds,” Ashwin said.

Three players remained undefeated, Ashwin, Vidit and Lalith. Lalith sacrificed a bishop for two pawns to peel the defence of Rahul Sangma and win a nice final round game. He has made IM norms but now this title should leave him working for the GM norm next.

Mary retains title

Requiring a draw for the title, Mary got into a slightly better position and did not push for a win, but instead offered a draw on move 31 which Padmini Rout accepted.

Only Mary remained undefeated in the tournament. She came here to win and book a seeding for the World junior girls’ championship in 2009 and it was mission accomplished.

Kruttika Nadig of Pune scored over Sivasankari in a long game for the second place. Bhakti Kulkarni of Goa made some deft moves in the end to defeat National sub-junior champion Bharathi of Chennai for the third place.

World champion Viswanathan Anand distributed the prizes.

Final placings (tie-break order): Boys: 1-2. Ashwin Jayaram (gold), M.R. Lalith Babu (silver) 7.5/ 9 each; 3-4. B. Adhiban (bronze), Vidit Gujrathi 7 each; 5-6. S. Nitin, Shyam Nikhil 6.5 each; 7-11. Vishnu Prasanna, Rahul Sangma, P. Karthikeyan, Tejas Ravichandran, Deep Sengupta 6 each.

Girls: 1. Mary Ann Gomes 7.5/ 9 (gold); 2-3. Kruttika Nadig (silver), Bhakti Kulkarni (bronze) 7 each; 4-5. Padmini Rout, P. Sivasankari 6 each; 6-9. Shalmali Gagare, N. Raghavi, Kiran Mohanty, R. Preethi 5.5 each; 10-14. R. Bharathi, Ch, Divyasri, J. Mohana Priya, G. Apurva, M. Khushboo 5 each.

Important results: Round nine: Boys: Vidit drew with Ashwin, Lalith bt Sangma, Prasanna lost to Adhiban, Nitin bt Navin Kanna, K. Priyadharshan lost to Nikhil.

Girls: Mary drew with Rout, Sivasankari lost to Kruttika, Bhakti bt Bharathi, Shalmali drew with Raghavi, Shristi Shetty lost to Kiran, S. Harini lost to Preethi, Apurva drew with Divyasri.