Hari leads by half a point

Indians had mixed luck in the ninth round of the World Junior Chess Championship at Hotel Casino on Thursday. Pentyala Harikrishna drew his ...

Indians had mixed luck in the ninth round of the World Junior Chess Championship at Hotel Casino on Thursday. Pentyala Harikrishna drew his game against L’Ami Erwin of Netherlands to keep his half point lead, Eesha Karavade jumped to joint second position after a surprise victory over Alina Motoc of Romania and Koneru Humpy bowed to Yuri Drozdovsky of Ukraine.

In the girls section, Indians played on all the top six boards but only Eesha ended up on the winning side. Anna Ushenina of Ukraine, Elisabeth Paehtz of Germany and Ekaterina Korbut of Russia shared the lead with seven points each afer nine rounds.

Hari was in sole lead with 7.5 points in the boys section, followed by Zhao Jun of China with seven points. Jun, who split the point with Alekseev Evgeny of Russia, also made a Grandmaster norm in the process.

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Harikrishna played the white side of English against Erwin and drew in 44 moves in a queen, rook and opposite colour bishop ending. Humpy got into a tactical trap in Benoni against Drozdovsky and lost in 32 moves. The Ukrainian was about to win material with a knight fork.

Deep Sengupta of India rubbed salt into Fernc Berkes’ wounds by inflicting a stunning defeat on the top seed in 43 moves. The Indian gave two exchanges and promoted his Queenside connected pawns.

Eesha Karavade, a 11standard student of BMCC, Pune, trapped Alina Motoc’s rook in a rook and pawn ending from Grunfeld Defence after 53 moves.

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