The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Rohit halts Prasad; Harika in joint lead

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Dec 30, 2004

Sport

Sport - Chess

Rohit halts Prasad; Harika in joint lead

By Rakesh Rao

BIKANER, DEC. 29. Some unexpected results in the 10th and penultimate round have set up an exciting finish to the Asian junior chess championship. Though India is assured of five of the six medals at stake, a repeat `golden sweep' looks difficult.

G. Rohit scored a stunning victory over leader S. Arun Prasad to open up the title-race in the boys' section. With Deepan Chakkravarthy outplaying T. U. Navin Kanna and matching Prasad's tally of seven points, the games involving the two leaders will be watched keenly on Thursday.

In the girls' section, overnight leader Vietnam's Hoang Thi Bao Tram escaped with a draw against Malaysia's Siti Zulaikha after top seed D. Harika won her game against J. E. Kavitha.

With Hoang and Harika on 8.5 points, half-a-point ahead of Soumya Swaminathan, the medallists' stand has been decided. Only their order needs to be confirmed.

The sequence of results on Wednesday broke the monotony of expected results in the past couple of rounds.

Prasad, playing black, came under early pressure from Rohit, who was looking for a win to keep alive his hopes of a medal. Prasad, trying to squeeze out a draw after his off-the-board peace-offer was declined by Rohit, had to give up a rook for knight to prevent an early defeat. A little later, Rohit loosened his grip and had no choice but to return the rook for the minor piece in order to regain the initiative. Amidst mounting pressure, Prasad sacrificed a knight in order to stop Rohit's queening pawn. Thereafter, Prasad succeeded in creating some threats of queening his pawn to counter a similar plan from Rohit. However, Rohit came up with a calculated defence to foil Prasad's designs.

Easy for Deepan

Deepan did not face much difficulty in halting Kanna in 37 moves. As things stand now, Prasad will have to at least match Deepan's result in the final round to take the title since he enjoys a better progressive score. Interestingly, Deepan faces Rohit, while Prasad faces former leader Nguyen Van Huy.

Abhijeet Gupta staked his claim for a medal with an easy 20-move victory over Akshayraj Kore after the latter blundered a rook for knight in an equal position. Abhijeet, who has superior progressive count, heads the pack of four players sharing the third spot with 6.5 points each. He plays G. N. Gopal, who drew with Arghyadip Das on Wednesday.

Among the girls, Hoang managed to salvage half-a-point against Siti. She encountered a strong kingside offensive and lost a pawn in the middle game. But once the queens were off the board and the minor pieces got exchanged, Siti could not convert her superiority into a victory.

After Harika's ruthless victory, Soumya Swaminathan defeated defending champion Y. Prathiba to move two points ahead of Kruttika Nadig and Saheli Nath.

The results (10th round, Indians unless stated): Boys: G. Rohit (6.5) bt S. Arun Prasad (7); G. N. Gopal (6.5) drew with Arghyadip Das (6.5); T. U. Navin Kanna (5.5) lost to Deepan Chakkravarthy (7); M. R. Venkatesh (6) drew with Poobesh Anand (6); Akshayraj Kore (5.5) lost to Abhijeet Gupta (6.5); Nurdin Samakov (Krz) (5.5) lost to Bahodir Kholmirzaev (Uzb) (5.5); Soumitra Mujumdar (4.5) lost to Ngyuen Van Huy (Vie) (6); Raveen Thrimavitharana (Sri) (3.5) lost to Anton Filippov (Uzb) (5.5); Sriram Sarja (5) bt M. V. Lakshminarayanan (4); Mesgen Amanov (Tkm) (4.5) drew with Abhyudaya Rajpurohit (4.5); Kartikey Batra (3) lost to Mehdi Hasan (Ban) (5); Nikhilesh Kumar (5) bt Wahab Ahmad (Pak) (3); Kamal Firdaus Foudzi (Mal) (5) bt Raushan Jaiswal (Nep) (2.5); Niyazklych Niyazov (Tkm) (1) bt Johan Iskandar (Mal) (5).

Girls: Siti Zulaikha (Mal) (5.5) drew with Hoang Thi Bao Tram (Vie) (8.5); D. Harika (8.5) bt J. E. Kavitha (5); Soumya Swaminathan (8) bt Y. Prathiba (5); Saheli Nath (6) drew with Mary Ann Gomes (5.5); Kruttika Nadig (6) drew with N. Sandhya (5.5); Maya Kurbanova (Tkm) (4.5) drew with Bahar Hallaeva (Tkm) (5); Amruta Mokal (4.5) lost to P. Sivasankari (5); Irina Gevorgyan (Uzb) (4.5) drew with Anuprieta Patil (5); H. Sowmya (5.5) bt U. G. Y. Methmali (Sri) (2); Samathi Wettasinghe (Sri) (1) lost to N. Raghavi (5.5); Nabeela Farheen (5) bt Janyl Tilenbaeva (Krg) (4); P. Priya (5) bye.

Final round pairings: Boys: Deepan-Rohit; Prasad-Nguyen; Abhijeet-Gopal; Das-Venkestesh; Poobesh-Kore; Filippov-Samakov; Kholmirzaev-Kanna; Hasan-Foudzi; Iskandar-Nikhilesh; Sarja-Batra; Ahmad-Mujumdar; Jaiswal-Amanov; Rajpurohit-Niyazov; Lakshminarayanan-Thrimavitharana.

Girls: Harika-Sowmya; Sandhaya-Hoang; Mary-Soumya; Siti-Saheli; Anuprieta-Kruttika; Raghavi-Nabeela; Sivasankari-Bahar; Prathiba-Maya; Janyl-Priya; Kavitha-Samanthi; Methmali-Irina; Amruta bye.

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