The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Front-runners struggle to keep lead

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Sport - Chess

Front-runners struggle to keep lead

Rakesh Rao

NEW DELHI: Four Indian overnight leaders suffered defeats and several others were made to split points on the fourth day of the Asian Youth chess championship at the Tivoli Garden Resorts here on Thursday.

On a day that saw a rise in the percentage of draws on the leading boards, Indian girls maintained their lead in five out of six sections. In the open category, the host led in three sections, while the aspirants from Iran, Vietnam and United Arab Emirates were ahead in the other three.

Mitrabha loses

Sankalp Baliarsingh ended Mitrabha Guha’s winning run by inflicting a surprise defeat on the fourth seed in the under-8 section. In under-10, where three Iranians started the day as leaders, Shahin Loprarizangeneh defeated teammate Reza Ghanbarzedeh to surge ahead.

Diptayan Ghosh kept his lead despite being held by Shardul Gagare in the under-12 section while Sahaj Grover, the under-14 top seed, posted his fifth straight victory to head the field.

A strong Indian presence in the under-16 section still trailed Vietnam’s Nguyen Van Hai. In under-18, UAE Grandmaster Salem Saleh stayed on course of taking the gold.

Among the girls, Pon N. Krithika (under-18), Priyanka Kumari (under-14) and Palkin Kaur (under-8) suffered their first defeats.

Krithika, her conqueror Guliskhan Nakhbayeva (Kazakhstan) and Bhakti Kulkarni shared the lead but Priyanka and Palkin slipped a few rungs in their sections.

The results (top-five boards, Indians unless stated):

Open: Under-8 (sixth round): Sankalp Baliarsingh (4) bt Mitrabha Guha (5); Aryan Chopra (4) lost to Prameya Garge (4.5); Nima Shriani Liri (Iri, 4.5) bt Ghorbani Torshizi (Iri, 3); Ramazan Zhalmakhanov (Kaz, 3) lost to Voung The Hung Vy (Vie, 4); Tromphin Sitrorus (Ina, 2.5) lost to Amin Tabatabaei (Iri, 3.5).

Under-10 (sixth round): Shahin Lorparizangeneh (Iri, 5) bt Reza Ghanbarzadeh (Iri, 4); Zhansaya Abdumalik (Kaz, 4) drew with Arya Omidi (Iri, 4.5); Pavit Singh (4) drew with Jeet Jain (4); Harshal Shahi (4) bt Nguyen Huynh Tuan Hai (Vie, 3.5); Hetul Shah (4) bt Muhammad Firmansyah (Ina, 3).

Under-12 (sixth round): Diptayan Ghosh (5) drew with Shardul Gagare (4.5); Oleg Artemenko (Uzb, 4.5) bt Girish Koushik (3.5); Tran Tuan Minh (Vie, 4.5) bt Vaibhav Suri (3.5); Sayantan Das (4.5) bt Cyrus Pereira (3.5); Sumiya Bilguun (Mgl, 3.5) drew with G. Yogesh (3.5);

Under-14 (sixth round): Sahaj Grover (5) bt Johangir Vakhidov (Uzb, 4); Pouya Idani (Iri, 4.5) bt Shiven Khosla (3.5); Sai Krishna (4.5) bt Alibek Igambergenov (Kaz, 3.5); Voung Trung Hieu (Vie, 4) bt Nihal Manjunath (3); Utkal Ranjan Sahoo (2.5) drew with Pham Hoai Nam (Vie, 3).

Under-16 (sixth round): Vidit Gujarathi (4) drew with K. Priyadarshan (4.5); Ankit Rajpara (4) drew with Maksat Atabayev (Tkm, 4.5); Konstantin Kazakov (Kaz, 3) lost to Nyuyen Van Hai (Vie, 5); Ulugbek Tillyaev (Uzb, 3) lost to Aditya Udeshi (4); Ramnath Bhuvanesh (3.5) bt Rishi Thariani (2.5).

Under-18 (fifth round): Salem Saleh (UAE, 4.5) bt Akmal Faizulaev (Uzb, 3); Shyam Nikhil (4) drew with Debashis Das (3.5); Amirreza Pourramezanali (Iri, 3.5) bt Shreyansh Daklia (2); Boldbaatar Ulziibayear (Mgl, 2.5) drew with Ton That Nhu Tung (Vie, 2.5); Yusup Atabayev (Tkm, 3) bt Satyajit Kundu (2).

Girls: Under-8 (fifth round): P. Nithya (4) bt Palkin Kaur (3.5); Arpita Mukherjee (3.5) drew with Khushi Dharewa (3.5): Tarini Goyal (4) bt Ramila Vagoohian (Iri, 2.5); Fatemeh Hashemi (Iri, 3) bt Vanessa Elaine (Ina, 2); Uchral Gankhuyag (Mgl, 2.5) drew with Pham Vu Linh Chi (Vie, 2.5).Under-10 (sixth round): Ivana Furtado (5) bt C.H. Meghna (3.5); Kimiya Ghaziolsharif (Iri, 3.5) lost to Pham Thanh Phuong Thao (Vie, 5); Parveen Hilmi (3.5) lost to Arnash Bauyrzhan (Kaz, 4.5); Kesshni Bhasiin (3) lost to Tejaswini Sagar (4); Shakhnazi Musaeva (Kgz, 3) lost to Nguyen Thanh Thuy Tien (Vie, 4). Under-12 (sixth round): G. Lasya (3.5) drew with G.K. Monnisha (5); Srija Seshadri (4.5) drew with M. Mahalakshmi (4.5); Ogulgerek Atabayeva (Tkm, 3) lost to Dao Thi Lan Anh (Vie, 4); Shoumi Mukherjee (4) bt Botakoz Koshkharova (Kaz, 3); Dorsa Derakhshani (Iri, 3.5) bt Megha Gupta (2.5).

Under-14 (sixth round): J. Saranya (5) bt Priyanka Kumari (4.5); Sarasadat Khademalsharieh (Iri, 5) bt Anjana Krishna (3.5); Pratyusha Bodda (3) lost to P.V. Nandhidhaa (4.5); Vanessa D’souza (4) bt Gozel Atabayeva (Tkm, 3); Dinushki Premanath (Sri, 4) bt Do Hoang Minh Tho (Vie, 3).Under-16 (sixth round): Hoang Thi Nhu (Vie, 4.5) drew with R. Bharathi (4); Rucha Pujari (4) drew with Vo Thi Kim Phung (Vie, 4.5); Mitra Hejazipour (Iri, 3.5) drew with Nguyen Thi Mai Hung (Vie, 3.5); Anu Bayar (Mgl, 3.5) drew with Pallabi Roy (3.5); Sarvinoz Qurbonboeva (Uzb, 4) bt Altanulzii Enkhtuul (Mgl, 3). Under-18 (fifth round): Guliskhan Nakhbayeva (Kaz, 4) bt Pon N. Krithika (4); Aynur Isayeva (Tkm, 2.5) lost to Bhakti Kulkarni (4); Hulkar Tokhirjanova (Uzb, 3) drew with Mitali Patil (3); P. Uthra (3) bt Dhara Gupta (2); Mariam Vardkar (Iri, 2) lost to K. Manasa (3).