World Youth Championship 2009- Round 9 report
By D.V.Prasad, International Master

IM B.Adhiban came into striking distance for the top place by scoring over IM Piorun Kacper of Poland and moved to 7.5 points trailing the Spaniard GM Salgado Lopez by half a point in the U-18 section. Adhiban employed the Sicilian classical variation and in a complicated struggle in the Richter Rauzer was initially on the defensive side with some weaknesses in the centre. However Adhiban made a queer rook sacrifice which was difficult to refute over the board and his opponent overstepped the time limit.

In the meantime, IM’s Vidit Gujrathi and S.P. Sethurman continued their onslaught by scoring wins in contrasting styles against FM Maim Lagarde of France and GM Swiercz Durisz of Poland respectively by amassing 8 points each thereby steering clear of the field with an enviable lead of 1.5 points in the U-16 section. This has been India’s stronghold with Debashis Das reaching 6.5 points and Priyadarshan, Aditya Udeshi and Prasanna Rao logging 6 points each, thereby poised for a huge medal haul in this category.

Young Murali Karthikeyan jumped to the second spot in the U-10 section by scoring a facile victory over team mate Hetul Shah from the white side of Sicilian Najdorf to reach 7.5 points and is very much in the race for top honours. In another encounter featuring Indians Ivano Furtado got the better of C.H.Meghna in the U-10 girls section by taking her tally to 7.5 points thereby improving her chances, though the Azerbijan girl Mammadova Gunay Vugar with a superb performance of 9/9 has virtually won the U-10 girls category.

In top tables both Basnsi Prathima and Mirabaha Guha suffered losses by going down to Pallakollu Samidha and Mohammed Tabatabai to remain on 6.5 points each in the U-8 girls and U-8 section respectively. The only silver lining in the cloud was the victory of Aryan Chopra against Vugar Asadli to reach 6.5 points in the U-8 category.

In the U-12 girls, it was a day of mixed fortunes. Mahalakshmi regained lost ground by edging out Chinese player Liao Rui from the black side of Nimzo Indian defence and moved to 6.5 points though G.Lasya crashed to her second defeat to Ezgi Menzi of Turkey and stays on 6 points. In the U-12 section Vaibhav Suri held is forte against FM Tran Tuan Minh before signing the peace treaty and stayed in contention with 6.5 points which is half point behind leaders Michael Antipov and Pamatmat while teammate Diptyan Ghosh also kept his hopes alive with 6.5 points by drawing against Dastan Batuhan while Shardul Gagare also joined the bandwagon with 6.5 points with a smooth win against Russian Vladimir Minko.

The other medal hope include G.V.Saikrishna in the U-14 section who drew with top seed IM Cori Jorge from the white side of Ruy Lopez Berlin variation. Saikrishna has garnered 7 points and is on the joint second spot with three others trailing the leader Kamil Dragun of Poland by half a point. In the U-14 girls Saranya got the better of Nandidhaa to reach 6.5 points.

In other results Padmini Rout and Shalmali Gagare won in U-16 girls while Bhakti Kulkarni also won in the U-18 girls . All of them have 6 points each to get back into the tournament though it appears to be too late .



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