Ghate halts Yu’s dream run, Humpy takes sole lead

In a game of Sicilian Paulsen Variation, Swati playing with white pieces got passed `e’ pawn on the 31st move against Yu on the top board. The Chinese girl, who had scored upset wins over both World under-18 champion Aarthie Ramaswamy and Humpy in earlier rounds, exchanged her knight on `c4′ on the 50th move and her pawns were doubled on `c’ file. But then she lost the pawn on `c4′.

In a rook and pawn ending, Swati got a passed pawn on `b’ file on `b2′ and forced her Chinese opponent to resign on the 66th move by threatening to queen with the `b’ pawn.

Humpy, with an elorating of 2288 scored a timely win over unrated Giao of Vietnam in 50 moves in a game of Double Bishop Fianchitto Opening.

Humpy and Giao battled hard till the latter, playing with black pieces, erred on the 26th move by playing `Nc5′ and gave two minor pieces for a rook. Humpy played `d6′ on the 33rd move, sacrificed a pawn to get an exchange and remained a piece up for two pawns. She forced an exchange of queens on the 39th move and forced her Vietnamese opponent to surrender on the 50th move.

In the boys’ category, the clash between Satyapragyan and Harikrishna of French Defence Rubenstein Variation, Harikrishna opened the `g’ file on the 6th move by capturing his rival’s bishop on `f6′ with the `g’ pawn instead of with bishop. On the 15th move, Hari, playing with black pieces, complicated matters by playing `Ng4′. Satyapragayn sacrificed a piece on the 18th move and got enough compensation by attacking the centralised king.

Hari erred a bit on the 20th move by playing `h5′ instead of `Qc8′, which enabled his opponent to capture two pawns for the piece. Later, the players signed the peace pact on the 32nd move. In the Sicilian Dragon game between Al Sayed and Bakre, the latter sacrificed a rook on the 25th move by capturing `a2′ pawn and threatened mate. The visitor defended the position by repeating the moves before the players agreed to a draw in 33 moves.

Results (Round VIII)

Boys: P Harikrishna (6) drew S Satyapragyan (5.5), Tejas Bakre (6) drew Al Sayed Mohammed (5.5), S Kidambi (5.5) drew SS Ganguly (5.5), Ghaem Maghami (5.5) drew CJ Arvind (4.5), Du Shan (4.5) drew Said Rakhimbakov (4.5), John Paul Gomez (5) bt Mahesh Chandran (4), Pratmesh Mokal (4.5) bt Valay Parikh (4), Neelotpal Das (4.5) bt Filippov Anton (3.5), Enamul Hossain (4.5) bt Syed Hassan (3.5), Mark Paragua (4) bt Soumyarajan Mishra (3), Vikramaditya Kamble (4) bt Mathew Sonter (3), M Satyajit (3.5) bt Taher Mullajumaa (2.5), Arjun Tiwari (3.5) bt Himanshu Kumar (2), PMAB Athukorala (2) drew Akshya Kore (2.5).

Girls: Koneru Humpy (6.5) bt Giao Ngoc Chauthi (4), Swathi Ghate (5.5) bt Yu Ting (6), S Meenakshi (5) drew Aarthi Ramaswamy (4.5), Elena Levushkina (4.5), Y Pratibha (3.5) drew Tania Sachdev (3.5), Beverly Mendoza (4) bt Pazha Sivakame (2.5), JE Kavitha (4) bt Anupama Konar (2), Madina Duisenova (3.5) bt Feroza Haque Choudary (0.5).