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Four Indians
In Sole Lead
By Arvind Aaron
India continues
to dominate the World Youth Chess Championship that is in progress at
Batumi in Georgia. After the end of the seventh round, four Indians are in
sole lead and N.Srinath of Sun Group who is defending his World Under-12
title is in joint lead.
Girish Koushik of Mysore stretched his lead in the World Under-10
championship to 1.5 points after he
scored his seventh victory. Ch. Mohineesh of Visakhapatnam maintained his
one point lead in the World Under-8 section with a clean seven out of
seven score.
Ivana Furtado of Goa moved from joint lead to sole lead in the Girls
Under-8 section. Dronavalli Harika
of Guntur is leading the Girls Under-18 section by a slender half a point.
She could become the second Indian to win that section after Aarthie
Ramaswamy won that section in 1999.
India had won two titles last year at Belfort. They are poised to win much
more titles and also pick up several medals this time. Four rounds remain
to be played. The event concludes on October 28.
Girls Group
Girls Under-18: Second seed Dronavalli Harika of Guntur maintained her
half point lead with a draw against Bela Khotenasvili of Georgia in the
seventh round. Harika is on 6 points from seven games and now faces the
top seed Diana Arutyunova (4.5) of Ukraine in the eighth round. Meanwhile,
Mary Ann Gomes of Kolkata also played a draw and kept the second place
with 5.5 points.
Girls Under-16: Indians, I.Ramya Krishna and Dhyani Dave are on four
points from seven rounds and are tied for the 15th place. Gulnar Mammodova
of Azerbaijan leads with 6/7. While Ramya Krishna and Uthra (3.5) figured
in drawn games, Dave won.
Girls Under-14: Three Indians, Bhakti Kulkarni, Lakshmi Sahithi and Pon
N.Krithikha are sharing the sixth place with 4.5 points. Bhakti lost on
4.5 while other two players won to reach 4.5.
Girls Under-12: Top seed and Asian Under-12 champion Padmini Rout of
Orissa suffered a mild setback when she was held to a draw by seed 47
Triin Narva of Estonia. Padmini is left on 5 points where she is tied for
the fourth place.
Girls Under-10: National under-9 champion and seed No. 3 Ch. Sahajasri and
seed No.2 Sai Nirupama are tied for the third to seventh places on 5.5
points after they posted seventh round wins.
Girls Under-8: Ninth seed Ivana Furtado of Goa shot into sole lead with
six points from seven games. She beat fifth seed Elena Bulmaga of Moldova
with the black pieces. In the second to fourth places are two more
Indians, M.Mahalakshmi and Mannepalli Navyavyshnavi with 5.5 points.
Boys Group
Open Under-18: G.Rohit and S.Arun Prasad are tied for the ninth place with
4.5 points and would be facing each other in the eighth round. A strong
finish for either of them can still land them with a medal.
Open Under-16: Dasari Sai Srinivas won round seven and moved ahead of the
other two Indians to reach 4.5 points. He is tied for the eleventh place.
Defeated round seven players are S.P.Sethuraman and Aswin Jayaram on four
points each.
Open Under-14: Second seed B.Adhiban of Chennai scored his third victory
in a row to reach five points and tie for the seventh place.
Open Under-12: Defending champion N.Srinath of Chennai was held to a draw
and slipped from sole lead to joint lead. Other Indians in this section
had a mixed day. Fenil Shah (4.5) and Vishwanath Prasad (4.5) lost.
Adith Jagadish, Sahaj Grover, Vidit Gujrathi, Harsha Lingala moved to five
points to share the sixth place.
Open Under-10: Girish Koushik of Mysore is going strong after scoring his
seventh straight victory. He accounted for Komiri Vijaya Kanth in the
seventh round. Interestingly, four Indians, G.V.Sai Krishna,
Y.V.K.Chakravarthi, R.Eswar, Sayantan Das are in joint second place with
5.5 points.
Open Under-8: Ch. Mohineesh is also going strong in the tournament having
won all seven games to maintain his one point lead. Unrated Mohineesh
shocked the second seed Tibor Ande of Hungary. Tied for the second to
fourth places with six points is Prince Bajaj.
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Published on : 25.10.2006
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