Soumya Swaminathan Is World Junior Champion

By Arvind Aaron

Soumya Swaminathan achieved what only five other Indians have achieved in world chess. She won the World Junior girls chess championship at Puerto Madryn in Argentina on November 3, 2009.

In the thirteenth and final round, Soumya, defeated Kubra Ozturk of Turkey with the white pieces for a place in world history. She became the third Indian girl after Koneru Humpy (2002) and Dronavalli Harika (2008) to win the World Junior Girls championship. The World Junior had been won by V. Anand (1987), P. Harikrishna (2004) and Abhijeet Gupta (2008) also. India is retaining the girls title.

"Great news Magesh, congratulations to her and to the entire team. Our president Mr N.Srinivasan and myself convey our hearty thanks for having kept the Indian flag flying high," said D.V. Sundar in an official comminique from Vietnam to the Indian coach GM P. Magesh Chandran in Argentina.

Soumya tied for the first place with two others but had the better tie-break score to end a deserving winner. All of them scored 9.5 points from 13 games. In the final round, Soumya started on 8.5 points and Cori Tello (Per) was also on 8.5. But Betul Yildiz of Turkey was better placed on nine points. While leader Yildiz only drew against Orissa's Kiran Mohanty, Soumya and Cori Tello won to tie for the first place on 9.5 points. When the official results were out, Soumya had the higher tie-break score of 27314, higher than Cori Tello's 27250 and Yildiz's 27052.

Soumya was in command in the event but a penultimate round defeat pushed her down from which she rose to win the tournament. She speaks English, Hindi, Marathi and fluent Tamil.

Soumya was born in Palakkad in 1989 and their family moved to Pune. Both her parents worked in a bank. When she was about to represent India in the World Under-10 championship her mother died in a road accident. Soumya recovered from that blow and has achieved plenty in chess.

"In her trip to Europe last year, she made five norms in one and a half months," said Joseph D'Souza, a chess administrator in Pune. Soumya is hard working and is a Commerce Student from the BMCC College he said. She is under the scholarship of a Petroleum company, he said.

Soumya had won several National titles: National U-17 in 2004, National Junior in 2005 and 2008. Her rating is 2297 and she played at 2433 Elo and would be gaining about ten Elo points from this event. Soumya won eight games, lost two to the two players she tied on points and drew three games for the title.The highest rated player she defeated was second seed Xiaowen Zhang of China. She did not face the top seed Mary Ann Gomes of Kolkata.

Medal winners and Indians in tie-break order:

Boys: 1-2 Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (Fra), Sergei Zhigalko (Blr) 10.5/13; 3 GM Michal Olszewski (Pol) 9; 20 IM M.R. Lalith Babu (Ind) 7.5; 22 IM P. Karthikeyan (Ind) 7.5; 24 IM Ashwin Jayaram (Ind) 7.5; 40 IM B. Adhiban (Ind) 6.5; 41 IM M. Shyam Sundar (Ind) 6.5; 44 FM Vishnu Prasanna (Ind) 6.5...82 players.

Girls: 1-3. WGM Soumya Swaminathan (Ind), WIM Deysi Cori Tello (Per), Betul Yildiz (Tur) 9.5/13 each; 8 WIM Padmini Rout (Ind) 8; 10 WIM Kiran Manisha Mohanty (Ind) 8; 19 WGM Mary Ann Gomes (Ind) 7; 34 S. Harini (Ind) 5.5...45 players.

 

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