Title For Sethuraman Besides Three Silver, Two Bronze For India

By Arvind Aaron

Final round disasters may have taken a toll on our number of medals but India has retained the World Under-16 title this time via S.P. Sethuraman of Chennai in the World Youth Chess Championship that ended at Antalya, Turkey on Nov 23, 2009.

The fight for the 12 titles was fierce with no nation taking more than two overall (open/girls). Among girls and open, no country could win more than one title. Overall, Russia won two, Peru two, China two, Iran two, Australia,Israel, Azerbaijan and India one each.

Scanning the results and placings of nations, China has clearly taken note of the previous placings at Georgia 2005 and Vietnam 2008 and are working to get better of us. They have fielded more players in all the groups. There are more Chinese in each of the sections than Indians.

Sethuraman's title came after a defeat he suffered to Vidit Gujrathi. He did not hear Vidit's draw offer and he paid that price. Vidit comes from Nasik (Mah) and took a draw in the last round against IM Illya Nyzhnyk of Ukraine thinking wrongly that it was progressive score tie-break. Sethuraman's tie-break score was better as sum of opponents rating tie-break was used by the arbiters. Clearly India dominated this section and Vidit was the silver medal winner.

Sethuraman comes from a chess family. His father S. Panayappan teaches chess. Sethuraman is a twelfth standard student from Velammal School. He is an International Master and also won four National titles and a GM norm. His latest championship was the National Junior title. His maiden world title has made his friends and supporters delighted.

"He was waiting for this for the last five years since Belfort 2005," said Panayappan. He is now departing for the National 'A' as this is the tight season for chess playing. His younger brother and mother are also chess players. Chess runs in their family. Since turning to a Ukrainian Grandmaster. his performances started to get better, said Panayappan. Overseas trainers are normal for Indians these days. Vidit uses a Israeli trainer, others like Negi use Elizbar Ubilava of Georgia.

Three players who missed medals and titles were Vaibhav Suri of Delhi, Adhiban of Chennai and Bansi Prathima of Hyderabad. All were last round victims. Yet, India won three silver medals. Besides Vidit, Ivana Furtado of Goa, former two time Under-8 champion settled for silver this time in the Under-10 section. Karthikeyan Murali who learns chess from M. Velayudham of Bloom Chess Academy in Chennai finished second in the Under-10 section. He actually tied for the first place.

Among our bronze medal winners were G.V. Sai Krishna of Vijayawada who tied for the second place and finished third on tie-break in the Under-14 section. After a poor start, 0.5/2, many would give up. But Saranya, did not lose heart and finished strongly with a 4/4 score to win the bronze medal in the Girls Under-14 section.

Our six medal winners: S.P. Sethuraman (TN, Under-16, gold), Vidit Gujrathi (Mah, Under-16, silver), Karthikeyan Murali (TN, Under-10, silver), Ivana Furtado (Goa, Girls Under-10, silver), G.V. Sai Krishna (AP, Under-14, bronze), J. Saranya (TN, Girls Under-14, bronze).

India did not do as well as Georgia 2005 or Vietnam 2008 but the six medal haul is no mean achievement. One title, three silver and two bronze medals means we are fairly consistent in picking up medals.

Though no reason is required for a mild reduction in medal count, Grand Master Ramesh of Chennai said many of our players played in higher age group this year and you can expect better results next year.

International Master K. Murugan of Chennai said atleast three medals were lost in the final day due to our players' rivals playing better chess. Our best coaching unit was present, and the players and parents should know that if they fail consistently at the last round, it means they need to have better fitness and nerves.

Final placings:

Open Category:

Under-18: 1 Maxim Matlakov (Rus) 9/11; 2 Ivan Salgado (Esp) 8.5; 3 Kacper Piorun (Pol) 8; 5 B. Adhiban (Ind) 7.5; 29 Shyam Nikhil 6.5; 35 R. Pradeep Kumar (Ind) 6.5; 37 Shreyansh Daklia (Ind) 6...101 players.

Under-16: 1-2. S.P. Sethuraman (Ind), Vidit Gujrathi (Ind) 9/11 each; Maxime Lagarde (Fra) 8; 6 Debashis Das (Ind) 8; 21 Prasanna Rao (Ind) 7; 24 Aditya Udeshi (Ind) 6.5; 27 K. Priyadarshan (Ind) 6.5; 57 Deepthamsh Reddy (Ind) 5.5; 68 Jitendria Vels (Ind) 5.5...119 players.

Under-14: 1 Cori Jorge (Per) 9/11; 2-3. Kamil Dragun (Pol), G.V. Sai Krishna (Ind) 8.5 each; 15 Utkal Ranjan Sahoo (Ind) 7.5; 30 Tejas Ravichandran (Ind) 6.5...138 players.

Under-12: Bobby Cheng (Aus) 9/11; 2-3. Jan-Krzysztof Duda (Pol), Richard Wang (Can) 8.5 each; 6 Vaibhav Suri (Ind) 8; 8-10. Diptayan Ghosh, Shardul Gagare, Girish Koushik (all Ind) 8 each; 51 Sayantan Das (Ind) 6; 60 Bhaskar Arun Gupta (Ind) 6; 69 Cyrus Pereira (Ind) 5.5...142 players.

Under-10: 1-3. Bai Jinshi (Chn), Karthikeyan Murali (Ind), Zhang Han Yu (Chn) 9/11 each; 5 Hetul Shah (Ind) 8.5; 36 Harshal Shahi (Ind) 5.5 ...147 players.

Under-8: 1 Aryan Gholami (Iri) 9/11; 2-3. Tanuj Vasudeva (USA), Mohd Amin Tabatabaei (Iri) 8.5 each; 6 Aryan Chopra (Ind) 8; 8 Mitrabha Guha (Ind) 8; 20-21. Nitish Belurkar (Ind) 7, Rajaryan Kuvelkar (Ind) 7; 40 Prameya Garge (Ind) 6.5...120 players

Girls Category:

Girls Under-18: 1-2. Olga Girya (Rus), Keti Tsatsalashvili (Geo) 8.5/11 each; 3 Kubra Ozturk (Tur) 8; 7 Pon N. Krithikha (Ind) 7.5; 16 Bhakti Kulkarni (Ind) 6.5...61 players.

Girls Under-16: 1 Cori T Deysi (Per) 10/11; 2 Meri Arabidze (Geo) 8.5; 3 Nazi Paikidze (Geo) 8; 14 Padmini Rout (Ind) 7; 22-23 Rucha Pujari (Ind), Shalmali Gagare (Ind) 6.5 each; 28-29. Shristi Shetty (Ind), R. Bharathi (Ind) 6.5...102 players.

Girls Under-14: 1-2. Marsel Efroimski (Isr), Aleksandra Lach (Pol) 9/11 each; 3 J. Saranya (Ind) 8.5; 15 Pv Nandhidhaa (Ind) 7; 19 S. Anjana Krishna (Ind) 7; 35 B. Pratyusha (Ind) 6...100 players.

Girls Under-12: 1 Sarasadat Khademalsharieh (Iri) 10/11; 2 Anna Styazhkina (Rus) 9.5; 3 Aleksandra Goryachkina (Rus) 8.5; 4 Goly Lasya (Ind) 8; 7 M. Mahalakshmi (Ind) 7.5; 20 Srija Seshadri (Ind) 7; 32 U. Ashwini (Ind) 6.5; 68 Arunima Goyal (Ind) 5...105 players.

Girls Under-10: Gunay Vugar Qizi Mammadzada (Aze) 10.5/11; 2-3. Ivana Maria Furtado (Ind), Aydan Hikmet Qizi Hojjatova (Aze) 8.5 each; 4 C.H. Meghna (Ind) 8; 9 Tejaswini Sagar (Ind) 7.5; 11 Riya Savant (Ind) 7.5; 15 Shiny Das (Ind) 7...83 players.

Girls Under-8: 1 Chu Ruotong (Chn) 9.5/11; 2-3. Samirtha Palakollu (USA), Li Yunshan (Chn) 8.5; 4 Bansi Prathima (Ind) 8; 10 Arpita Mukherjee (Ind) 7.5; 12 Khushi Dharewa (Ind) 7.5; 23 Tarini Goyal (Ind) 6.5...84 players.


More News