Aarthie maintains lead with victory

MUMBAI, NOV 30: Aarthie ramaswamy continued her impressive run in the Sahara Asian Sub-Junior chess championships with a seventh consecutiv...

MUMBAI, NOV 30: Aarthie ramaswamy continued her impressive run in the Sahara Asian Sub-Junior chess championships with a seventh consecutive victory at the Avion Hotel here today. Aarthie, who beat Leonova Maija (Kazakhstan), retains her lead but she faces a crunch match against Le Kieu Thien Kim of Vietnam in the eighth round tomorrow.

In the boys’ section, Tejas Bakre maintained his half-point lead (5.5) but another Indian, P Mahesh Chandran, suffered a setback when he lost to Anton Paulo Del Mundo of Philippines. Anton is on five. There are, however, three Indians with 4.5 points — Mahesh, S Satyapragyan and Valay Parikh.

Bakre and Satyapragyan drew their top-board game while Parikh held the second seed Khamrakulov Ibrokhim on the third board. Three other Indian boys — Prathemesh Mokal, S Kidambi and Shoven Shah won today.

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Aarthie played the Sicilian Four Knights defence and after her opponent, Leonova Maija of Kazakhstan captured the H file pawn with her G file pawn, Aarthie got a chance to win the queen for a rook. Leonova came under time pressure and was losing another rook when she resigned.

Shraddha Samani played the opening badly (Petroff defence) and did not castle against Le Thien, who mounted pressure with her knights, bishop and queen forcing the Indian to resign.

Bakre faced Satyapragyan’s French defence and the players were left with opposite colour bishops. They drew after 40 moves. On the second board, Mahesh Chandran went for a pawn capture instead of developing his pieces. Mundo attacked with his bishop, rook and won after 27 moves.

Results: Boys (Round 7): Tejas Bakre (India) 5.5 drew with S Satyapragyan (India) 4.5; P Mahesh Chandran (India) 4.5 lost to Anton Paulo Del Mundo (Philippines) 5; Khamrakulov Ibrokhim (Uzbekistan) 4 drew with Valay Parikh (India) 4.5; Ghaem Maghami (Iran) 4 bt Ahmed Aziz (Iraq) 3.5; Askarov Bachtyar (Kazakhstan) 3.5 drew with Surya Sekhar Ganguly (India) 3.5; Prathamesh Mokal (India) 4 bt Vo Mimb Hoang (Vietnam) 3; Wung Zi Jing (Malaysia) 3 lost to Lim Yee Weng (Malaysia) 4; S Kidambi (India) 4 bt Subir-Goradia (India) 3; Yulianto Erwin (Indonesia) 3.5 bt Nesterenko Nikita (Kazakhstan) 1.5. Shoven Shah (India) 2 bt Gareth Charles (Australia) 2.5; Batzorig Tuvshintugs (Mongolia) 2 drew with Md Rubul Islam Boby (Bangladesh) 2

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Girls (Round 7): Yugita Yevie (India) 0 lost to JS Kavitha (India) 5; Leonova Maija (Kazakhstan) 1 lost to Aarthie Ramaswamy (India) 7; Lee Kieu Thien Kim (Vietnam) 6.5 bt Shraddha Samani (India) 1; Manasi Dadarkar (India) 3 lost to Samantha Lee Heng Jun (Malaysia) 4.5.