Abhijeet Gupta, Harika Win World Junior Titles
By Arvind Aaron

India created history in the process of winning the World Junior and the World Junior girls chess championship at Gaziantel, Turkey on August 15, 2008. No country has won both the boys and girls title in the same year in history. Even the mighty erstwhile Soviet Union had not made this feat. This double strike makes August 15, 2008 one of the greatest days in Indian chess.

All India Chess Federation President N. Srinivasan announced Rs.1 lakh cash awards to each of two champions, Abhijeet Gupta and Dronavalli Harika and Rs.50,000 to Parimarjan Negi for finishing runner-up and greeted them on their splendid achievement.

Dronavalli Harika started as the top seed and was expected to win already last year. She fell sick and lost the last three games in 2007. This time she overcame that and won with 10.5/13. Secure of the title with a round to spare, she played a draw in the final round against WGM Katerina Nemcova (Cz).

Harika had been the fastest improving player in the international women's circuit in 2007. She is 1991 born and trained by Raju, a former National B player from Andhra. She lives in Guntur. Only Koneru Humpy from Vijayawada had won this World Junior for India back in 2001 at Athens.

Harika had won many age group world titles. The previous one was the World Under-18 girls title at Batumi in Georgia. Winning the World Junior should send notice and help her get extra invitations for this tall girl from Guntur.

Harika won by a wide 1.5-point margin. In the same section, Mary Ann Gomes of Kolkata scored finished on nine points but missed silver and bronze on the tie-break to take fourth place.

Abhijeet Gupta won the World Junior to become the third Indian player after Viswanathan Anand (1987) and Pentala Harikrishna (2004) to achieve this feat. He won the last round with black by taking two pieces for a rook to end on 10/13. He defeated GM David Howell of England for the title. Parimarjan Negi of Delhi who also played black on nine points only drew a rook and knight ending to win the silver medal with 9.5 points. 

Abhijeet Gupta is sponsored by Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited. He became a Grand Master on December 9, 2007 at Delhi. He loves playing in Delhi for that reason. He is from Bhilwara in Rajasthan. He speaks Hindi, English, Bengali and a bit of Marathi. He works on chess for five to seven hours a day. He watches movies on TV, listens to music and reads novels. He likes Shahrukh Khan movies.

His best friend is Grand Master Deepan Chakkaravarthy from Madurai. He works with Vishal Sareen. He started chess at the age of six and a half by watching his father and neighbour play. One part of his chess mission is complete. His ultimate goal is to be the No.1 in World Chess and is well on course.

Final placings (medal winners and Indians):

World Junior: 1 Abhijeet Gupta (gold) 10/13, 2 Parimarjan Negi (silver) 9.5, 3 Arik Braun (Ger, bronze) 9, 30-36. S. Arun Prasad, G.N. Gopal, Deep Sengupta, Ashwin Jayaram, Karthikeyan Pandian 7.5, 37-50. Akshayraj Kore 7, 51-68. Sahaj Grover 6.5, 79-89 Vishnu Prasanna 5.5...109 players.

World Junior Girls: 1 Dronavalli Harika (gold) 10.5, 2 Mariya Muzychuk (Ukr, silver) 9, 3 Kubra Ozturk (Tur, bronze) 9, 4 Mary Ann Gomes 9, 11-13. Soumya Swaminathan, Kruttika Nadig 8 each, 24-29. Padmini Rout 7, 41-48. R. Preethi 6...64 players.


Home                                                         Published on 15^th August, 2008