Abhijit Kunte holds GM Kacheishvili

ZAGAN, July 23: Indian IM Abhijit Kunte (Elo 2430) continued to display his fine temperament by holding the higher ranked, GM Giorgi Kachei...

ZAGAN, July 23: Indian IM Abhijit Kunte (Elo 2430) continued to display his fine temperament by holding the higher ranked, GM Giorgi Kacheishvili of Georgia to a draw in the 8th round of the World Junior Boys and Girls Chess Championships being played at Zagan, Poland.

Kunte, playing with the advantage of white pieces was able to hold the Georgian who is ranked more than a hundred points above him on the Elo scale. He has been able to gather 4.5 points till now and will meet the 5th seed Boris Avrukh of Israel in the next round.

India’s luck in the eigth round was mixed with IWM Vijayalakshmi Subbaraman losing to the eigth seeded Woman Grandmaster Harriet Hunt of EnglandVijayalakshmi is now joint tenth with five points after this loss to Hunt. In the ninth round, she faces Isabel Werner of Germany, who today upset Corina Peptan of Romania, the top seed in the women’s section.

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IWM Joanna Dworakowska of Poland maintained her lead with six points in the girls section when she drew with WGM Maia Lomineishvilli of Georgia, who now shares the second spot with six points along with five others.WGMs Elina Danielian (Armenia) and Harriet Hunt (England) and WIMs Dagne Ciuksyte (Lithuania) and Marta Zielinska (Poland) and World FIDE Master, Maria Sergeeva (Kazakistan) are breathing down the neck of leader Dworakowska with six points each.

Top seed Alexander Morozevich (Rus), US Junior champion Tal Shaked and Sergi Movsesian (Czech) all won their respective games to join the leaders — Thien Dao (Vietnam) and Evgeniy Najer (Russia) — with six points each.

The three players’ climb up was helped by the drawn games between overnight leaders Ruslan Ponamariov (Ukraine), Hristos Banikas (Greece), Thien Dao and Evgeniy Najer.