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Adhiban marches on, three share lead
By
R.R.Vasudevan, FIDE Arbiter
World Under 16 Champion Baskar Adhiban continued his great run as he
outplayed Rahul Sangma in the fifth round of the Sai Ram Engineering
College Asian Junior Chess Championship 2008 at Hotel Vijay Park,
here today. Growing with confidence with a string of superb results
this year, Adhiban extracted a nice win from a seemly drawish rook
and pawn ending. Adhiban leads the table with 4.5 points along with
FIDE Master Vidit Santosh Gujrathi and Vishnu Prasanna. Following
the leaders half a point behind are International Master Aswin
Jayaram, FIDE Masters Nitin, Shyam Nikhil and National Junior
Champion Lalith Babu and Debashis Das.
In the girls section, Woman International Master Kruttika Nadig and
Woman FIDE Master Bhakthi Kulkarni share the lead with 4.5 points
after five rounds. Closely behind the leader with four points is
Olympiad Silver medallist and Woman Grandmaster Mary Ann Gomes.
The top board game between Adhiban and Rahul Sangma was a closely
fought affair. Around the fourth hour of play, Rahul misread his
position moving into an inferior rook and pawn ending. It was rather
a straight forward march for Adbiban's king towards his opponent's
territory, as Rahul was saddled with a rook which was out of play.
Rahul gave up after 47 moves.
Two more International Masters finished on the losing side today
viz., Defending Champion P Karthikeyan and top seed SP Sethuraman.
While a steady and hardworking Debashis Das brought down Karthikeyan,
the rising Maharashtra star Vidit Santosh Gujrathi got one up on
Sethuraman. The Sethu-Vidit battle was a charged discussion in the
Sicilian. As the game wore into the middle game, Sethu's plans to
make inroads failed, largely due to Vidit's defensive skills. Into
the fourth hour of play, the time pressure along with an open king
position, did Sethuraman in. A fine victory for the young lad from
Nasik, who is promising a great deal of action, in the remaining
rounds.
Defending Champion and International Master P Karthikeyan tasted his
first defeat as Debashis Das got a favorable position right out of
the opening. The Ruy Lopez game found Karthikeyan going for an
exchange of minor piece, that left him with a shattered queenside,
including an awakwardly placed doubled pawn. Right through the four
hour battle, Debashis held a iron grip on the position, and
gradually increased his advantage. Into the last few minutes,
Karthikeyan had to give up a piece hoping for a possible draw, but
resigned a few more moves later, on the 54th turn.
Woman International Master and top seed Kruttika Nadig continued her
occupation of top board, and in the process defeated her statemate
Shalmali Gagare today. Converting her middle game advantage into an
exchange up position, Kruttika had to make her moves with precision.
In the ensuing rook versus knight end game, Shalmali's inaccuate
moves, helped Kruttika cause. In the crucial sixth round, Kruttika
meets young Goan star WFM Bhakthi Kulkarni.
Bhakthi Kulkarni faced the Queens Indian defence from CH. Divyashri
of Andhra Pradesh. Into the second hour of play, Bhakthi showed
courage to move on giving up her queen to take the initiative.
Marshalling her pieces with admirable agility, Bhathi had Divyasri
in a great positional squeeze. And the efforts of Divyasri to ease
the tension, bore no fruit as Bhakthi cornered the white king, as
well marched her pawn to the queening square. Divya resigned by 43
moves
Results and Pairing :
Boys -
Girls
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