The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Arun Prasad jumps into sole lead

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Dec 28, 2004

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Sport - Chess

Arun Prasad jumps into sole lead

By Rakesh Rao

BIKANER, DEC. 27. With two dramatic victories, S. Arun Prasad broke away from the leaders' pack for a one-point cushion with three rounds to go in the Asian junior chess championship here on Monday.

Arun, the reigning Asian Under-16 champion and one of the overnight leaders, punished an ambitious Abhijeet Gupta after the latter had declined his draw-offer in the seventh round. In the afternoon, Arun scored over former champion Deepan Chakkravarthy for an aggregate of 6.5 points.

Against Deepan, Arun managed to see off his rival's early aggression and built a good queen's side attack in Sicilian's Najdorf variation. Once Deepan was on the defensive, the Salem-lad brought in his other pieces into action and increased the pressure. Deepan traded his rook for a knight and a bishop but could not escape his first defeat of the competition.

The other newsmaker of the day was G. N. Gopal. He accounted for two International Masters, top seeded Uzbek Anton Filippov and S. Poobesh Anand in emphatic ways.

The results (Indians unless stated): Eighth round: Boys: Deepan Chakkravarthy (5.5) lost to S. Arun Prasad (6.5); G. N. Gopal (5.5) bt S. Poobesh Anand (5); G. Rohit (5) drew with Arhgyadip Das (5); M. R. Venkatesh (4.5) drew with Abhijeet Gupta (5); Nurdin Samakov (Krz) (5) bt Nguyen Van Huy (Vie) (4); T. U. Navin Kanna (5) bt Mehdi Hasan (Ban) (4); Akshayraj Kore (4.5) bt Mesgen Amanov (Tkm) (4); Anton Filippov (Uzb) (4.5) bt K. Nikhiliesh Kumar (3.5); Sriram Sarja (3.5) lost to Soumitra Mujumdar (4.5); M. V. Laskhminarayanan (3) lost to Bahodir Kholmirzaev (Uzb) (4); Raveen Thrimavitharana (Sri) (3) lost to Kamal Firdaus Faudzi (Mal) (3.5); Raushan Jaiswal (Nep) (2.5) lost to Johan Iskandar (Mal) (3.5); Abhyudaya Rajpurohit (3.5) bt Kartikey Batra (2); Wahab Ahmad (Pak) (2.5) bt Niyazov Niyazgliych (Tkm) (1).

Girls: D. Harika (7) bt N. Raghavi (4.5); Hoang Thi Bao Tram (Vie) (7) bt Saheli Nath (4.5); Soumya Swaminathan (6) bt N. Sandhya (4); Y. Prathiba (5) bt P. Priya (4); Kruttika Nadig (4.5) drew with Mary Ann Gomes (4.5); J. E. Kavitha (4) drew with Siti Zulaikha (Mal) (4); Bahar Hallaeva (Tkm) (4.5) bt H. Sowmya (3.5); Amruta Mokal (4.5) bt Anupreita Patil (3.5); P. Sivasankari (3) lost to Nabeela Farheen (4); U. G. Y. Methmali (Sri) (2) lost to Janyl Tilenbaeva (Krg) (3.5); Samanthi Wettasinghe (Sri) (1) lost to Irina Govergyan (Uzb) (3.5); Maya Kurbanova (Tkm) (4) bye.

Seventh round: Boys: Prasad bt Abhijeet; Nguyen lost to Deepan; Das drew with Poobesh; Hasan lost to Rohit; Filippov lost to Gopal; Amanov drew with Samakov; Kholmirzaev lost to Venkatesh; Kore drew with Sarja; Nikhilesh drew with Mujumdar; Iskandar lost to Kanna; Foudzi drew with Rajpurohit; Thrimavitharana bt Batra; Lakshminarayanan bt Ahmad; Jaiswal w.o. Niyazov.

Girls: Prathiba lost to Harika; Mary lost to Hoang; Soumya drew with Saheli; Raghavi bt Amruta; Siti drew with Kruttika; Priya bt Maya; Sandhya bt Nabeela; Sowmya drew with Anupreita; Irina lost to Bahar; Kavitha bt Methmali; Janyl bt Samanthi; Sivasankari bye.

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