Date:05/01/2009 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2009/01/05/stories/2009010553391600.htm

Sport - Chess

Nithya widens her lead

Nagpur: P. Nithya of Hyderabad, who learnt to play chess less than a year back, won all her seven rounds to widen her lead in the National under-7 girls’ chess championship here on Sunday.

Nithya benefited from an early mistake from Kerala’s Pooja to win a piece via a double attack in a Catalan opening with the white pieces.

Soon, she picked up a rook and then a queen to win her seventh game in a row and establish a clear one point lead with seven points. Behind her on six points each are Khushi Dharewa (Ben), Vidula Dempo (Goa) and Tarini Goyal (Cha).

In the boys’ section, Mitrabha Guha (Ben) of Kolkata and Prameya Garge (Mah) of Akola share the lead with 6.5 points after seven rounds.

They face each other on Monday morning. Four rounds remain to be played.

Mitrabha, a student of GM Dibyendu Barua, ended the winning run of overnight leader Saurabh Anand of Patna with the black pieces.

Important results: round seven:

Boys: Saurabh Anand (Bih) 6 lost to Mitrabha Guha (Ben) 6.5, P.R. Hirthickkesh (TN) 5.5 lost to Prameya Garge (Mah) 6.5, Lokesh Chachad (Mah) 5 lost to Arush Jain (Del), Aryan Chopra (Del) 6 bt Nishit Mohanty (Ori) 5, V.S. Rathnavel (TN) 6 bt J. Ashwin (Kar) 5, Ayush Pattnaik (MP) 6 bt N. Pawankumar (TN) 5, R. Hari Krishnan (TN) 4.5 lost to Rakesh Jena (Ori) 6.

Girls: P. Nithya (AP) 7 bt K. Pooja (Ker) 5, Tarini Goyal (Cha) 6 bt Bansi Prathima (AP) 5, Khushi Dharewa (Ben) 6 bt Arpita Mukherjee (Ben), B. Brindhaa (TN) 5 lost to Vidula Dempo (Goa) 6, Tishrota Chakraborthy (Ben) 4.5 lost to S.S. Hashini (TN) 5.5, R. Vaishali (TN) 5.5 bt Anjali Murthy (MP) 4. — Arvin Aaron