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Adhiban held, seven share lead
By
R.R.Vasudevan, FIDE Arbiter
World Under 16 Champion and International Master B.Adhiban was held to a draw by Andhra lad Lalith Babu in the fourth round of the Sai Ram Engineering College Asian Junior Chess Championship 2008 being held at Hotel Vijay Park, Chennai here today. Adhiban leads the pack with 3.5 points along with fellow International Masters Aswin Jayaram, Shyam Sundar, FIDE Master Vidit Santosh Gujrathi, Rahul Sangma, Lalith Babu and Vishnu Prasanna.
Right behind the leaders at 3.0 points are International Masters P Karthikeyan, SP Sethuraman, along with FIDE Masters Shyam Nikhil and S Nitin and four other lads viz., Anwesh Upadhyaya, Tejas Ravichandran, M G Gahan and Debashis Das.
In the Girls section, overnight leader Shalmali Gagare was held to a draw by higher seeded Woman Grandmaster Mary Ann Gomes in a marathon game that went for the full distance. Handicapped by a pawn down position, Mary hung on grimly in a rook and pawn ending ekeing an important draw. Shalmali was short of time, and was found wanting in technique as she struggled to find the winning continuation. Unable to escape a series of checks that prevented her pawn promotion, Shalmali took the draw and maintained her position on top of the points table with 3.5 points.
Sharing the lead with Shalmali Gagare are Woman International Master Kruttika Nadia and Woman FIDE Master Bhakthi Kulkarni. Half a point behind the leaders are Woman Grandmaster Mary Ann Gomes, Ch.Divyasri, Meenu Rajendiran and Shristi J Shetty.
International Master Adhiban appeared coasting to his fourth straight win, as he rattled out moves against National Junior Champion M R Lalith Babu with great speed. But the cool head that Lalith was, he held on despite a big time deficit. In the ensuing minor pieces ending, neither player had a significant advantage, and draw was agreed after 39 moves.
Joining the boys section leaders with a finely played out win was International Master SP Sethuraman. Pitted against Saravana Krishnan, Sethu showed his strength in middle game and caught the white king with some excellent intermediate moves. Faced with multiple loss, Saravana Krishnan gave up after 33 moves.
Top seed Woman International Master Kruttika Nadig displayed her spectacular attacking prowess as she downed Tamil Nadu star N Raghavi. In the Sicilian game that turned to be a good entertainer, it was Kruttika all the way. Setting out attack in the flank, Kruttika then moved on to the centre and had Raghavi in sixes and sevens.Faced with heavy material loss, Raghavi gave up as the game wound up in 32 moves.
Results and Pairing :
Boys -
Girls
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