OROPESA DEL MOR (SPAIN), NOV 1: Aarthie Ramaswamy led a good show by Indians in the seventh round of the World boys' and girls' age-group chess championship by emerging sole leader in the girls' under-18 category beating third seed Ana Matnadze of Georgia.Under-10 Rahul Sangma jumped back into joint lead with three others after a win over Robin Swinkels of the Netherlands as nine Indians in the fray notched up wins in various categories while three others lost yesterday.Defending champion Koneru Humpy (girls' under-12), Pendyala Harikrishna (boys' under-16), Y Pratibha (girls' under-16), Sunil Rangarajan (boys' under-12), M R Venkatesh (boys' under-14), Soumya Swaminathan (girls' under-10) and Shraddha Somani (girls' under-14) all registered victories.Aarthie (6.5 points) opted for the Sozin Variation against her opponent's Sicilian Defence and put pressure on the king's side. After playing safe and letting go a chance to win a pawn in the middle game, she got her rook on the seventh rank to clinchthe issue.Playing the French defence to his rival's advanced variation, Rahul (6) equalised easily and capitalised on the Dutch boy's blunder to win a pawn in the middle game and carve out an excellent victory.Eesha Karvade equalised against Humpy's English Opening. However, she lost a pawn in the middle game after some weak moves to give top seed Humpy full control of the game and eventual victory. Humpy (6) was placed joint second a point behind the leader.
