The Hindu : Sport : Rakesh stuns Aswin Jayaram

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Friday, Dec 14, 2007
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Rakesh stuns Aswin Jayaram

Rakesh Rao

MUMBAI: The second-seeded Aswin Jayaram could only envy the luck of his Tamil Nadu teammate B. Adhiban after crashing to a stunning defeat at the hands of 14-year-old Thane boy Rakesh Kulkarni in the opening round of the Asian junior chess championship here on Thursday.

Aswin, whose International Master title was confirmed last month, fought valiantly before accepting the superiority of Rakesh who was rated more than 350 points below. Rakesh, with two extra pawns in an ending involving a rook each, scored the biggest victory of his career in 89 moves spread over five hours.

In comparison, the Asian under-16 champion Adhiban was fortunate to have escaped with a draw in 70 moves even after being three pawns down against Santosh Kumar.

On a day when the top-ranked Parimarjan Negi and third seed Sayed Alavi of Iran won easily, fourth seed Deep Sengupta had to fight all the way for a victory.

Atousa begins well

Among the girls, Iran’s Atousa Pourkashiyan showed the way as all the contenders emerged victorious. Atousa, one of the five Woman International Masters in the field, needed only 29 moves to begin her campaign on a triumphant note.

Indian spearhead Kiran Manisha Mohanty overpowered P. Uthra in 34 moves after defending champion Mary Ann Gomes received a walkover from K. Tejaswi.

The two surprise draws of the section involved Tamil Nadu girls P. Priya and Pon N. Krithika. Priya, a former National under-18 champion, lived dangerously before holding Iran’s Tara Rahimi in 29 moves. Krithika failed to get the better of Mitali Patil in 81 moves.

The results (Indians unless stated):

First round: Open: Parimarjan Negi bt Abhishek Kelkar; Rakesh Kulkarni bt Aswin Jayaram; Sayed Alavi (Iri) bt Nikhil Kamat; Shreyansh K. Shah lost to Deep Sengupta; S. P. Sethuraman bt Shiven Khosla; G. Santosh Kumar drew with B. Adhiban; Abhishek Das lost to Snehal Bhosale; Aditya Singh lost to Akshat Khamparia; Aditya Udeshi bt Sumant Subramanium (Mal); Y. D. S. Madugalle (Sri) lost to M. R. Lalith Babu; P. Karthikeyan bt Atishay Ajmera; Aditya Nargundkar lost to S. Nitin; K. Priyadarshan drew with Vishwesh Kochrekar; Kiranpal Singh Mahajan lost to Vishnu Prasanna; Debashis Das bt Lekh Mithawala; Neel Pethe lost to Krishnan Saravana; Swapnil Dhopade bt Abhishek Kenkre; Ahmed Assad (Mle) lost to T. Purushothaman; Shyam Sundar bt Samayak Baid; Akash Damle lost to Sahaj Grover.

Girls: Atousa Pourkashiyan (Iri) bt S. Harini; P. Uthra lost to Kiran Manisha Mohanty; Mary Ann Gomes w/o K. Tejaswi; J. Mohana Priya lost to Soumya Swaminathan; Padmini Rout bt Sonakshi Rathore; Y. G. Sriharika lost to Kruttika Nadig; Pon N. Krithika drew with Mitali Patil; Tara Rahimi (Iri) drew with P. Priya; P. Sivasankari bt Bhakti Juikar; Liza Shamima Akter (Ban) w/o Pratyusha Bodda.

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