Pune: Padmini Rout’s unbeaten stint was spoiled by top seed Aleksandra Goryachkina of Russia much to the disappointment of the Indian camp in the 8th round of the LIC World Junior Girls Chess Championship which continued after a day’s rest at Hotel Hyatt, Pune. In the Girls section, Daria Pustovoitova lost to Anna Iwanow of Poland. Anna Iwanow of Poland, Chumpitaz Ann of Peru and Goryachkina Aleksandra from Russia are jointly leading the 77 player event with 6.5 points each. Sarasadat Khademalsharieh is trailing the leader by half a point while Padmini remains on 5.5 points.
In fact, collectively it was not a good outing for Indians playing on top boards as Ivana Maria Furtado also ended on the losing side against third seed Sarasadat Khademalsharieh. Rucha Pujari, Shweta Gole. Sakshi Chitalange and Pv Nandhidhaa all ended on the losing side.
In the Open section sole leader Jorge Cori was upset by Karen Grigoryan of Armenia while Lu Shanglei of China defeated higher rated Benjamin Bok of Netherland. S L Narayanan who had been going great guns ended on the losing side against third seed Wei Yi of China after maintaining a balance for most part of the game. Karen, Wei and Shanglei have emerged joint leaders with 6.5 points each. Cori, Vladimir Fedoseev, Mikhail Antipov, Diptayan Ghosh and Bai Jinshi are trailing just half a point behind the leaders.
Padmini mishandled the Stonewall variation of the Dutch Defence against Goryachkina and the Russians rooks, queen and knight were soon threatening a major offensive on the King-side, right from the early middle-game stages. Padmini’s queen and rook were virtually out of play stranded on the queenside and her castle was broken. A wrong central pawn push on the 25th turn by Padmini suddenly opened up the gates towards her King and Goryachkina crashed through to pocket the point after 34 moves.
Five more rounds are remaining in this 13 round gruelling event sponsored by LIC and Government of Maharashtra and Amanora, ONGC, Jain Irrigation and Everstone are the Associate sponsors.
Narayanan opted for the Caro-Kann Defence against Wei Yi and played solidly to keep the position even in the middle-game. After the transposition to the ending where each player had a knight and rook, a draw loomed large but Narayanan lost a couple of pawns on the way and ended on the losing side after 79 moves.
Vidit Gujrathi was one of the early finishers scoring a rapid 34 move victory over Matej Blazeka of Croatia..
Important Results of Open section (Indians unless specified)
Karen Grigoryan (Arm)-6.5 bt Jorge Cori (Per)-6 ; Wei Yi (Chn)-6.5 bt S L Narayanan-5.5 ; Lu Shanglei (Chn)-6.5 bt Benjamin Bok (Ned)-5; Quinten Ducarmon (Ned)-5 lost to Vladimir Fedoseev (Rus)-6; Aravindh Chithambaram-5.5 drew Grigoriy Oparin (Rus)-5.5; Mikhail Antipov (Rus)-6 bt Anurag Mhamal-5; Diptayan Ghosh-6 bt Tadeas Kriebel (Cze)-5; Ulvi Bajarani (Aze)-5 lost to Bai Jinshi (Chn)-6; Aleksander Indjic (Srb)-5 drew Linus Johanson (Swe)-5.5 ; VladislavKovalev (Blr)-5 drew Ben Artzi Ido (Isr)-5; Shardul Gagare-4.5 lost to Kamil Dragun (Pol)-5.5; Balazs Csonka (Hun)-5 drew Ankit Rajpara-5; Prasanna Raghuraman -5.5 bt Prince Bajaj-4.5 ; Rajdeep Sarkar-5 drew Sayantan Das-5; N Niranjan-4.5 lost to N Srinath-5.5; Vidit Santosh Gujrathi -5 bt Matej Blazeka (Cro)-4.
Girls Section
Aleksandra Goryachkina (Rus)-6.5 bt Padmini Rout-5.5 ; Daria Pustovoitova (Rus)-5.5 lost to Anna Iwanow (Pol)-6.5; Marina Brunello (Ita)-5 lost to Ann Chumpitaz (Per)-6.5; Sarasadat Khademalsharieh (Iri)- 6 bt Ivana Maria Furtado-5 ; Ioana Gelip (Rou)-6 bt P V Nandhidhaa-6 ; Nguyen Thi Mai Hung (Vie)-5 drew Srija Seshadri-5 ; Sabina Ibrahimova (Aze)-5.5 bt Rucha Pujari-4.5 ; Irina Petrukhina (Rus) Varshini V; Mae Frayna Janelle (Phi)-5.5 bt ShwetaGole-4.5; Meri Arabidze (Geo)-5 bt Sakshi Chitlange-5 ; Pratyusha Bodda-5 bt Mila Zarkovic (Cro)-4
