Harikrishna bounces back

BIKANER, JULY 30: Former world under-10 champion P Harikrishna 3, shrugging off his second round defeat, outclassed Praveen Menon in 26...

BIKANER, JULY 30: Former world under-10 champion P Harikrishna 3, shrugging off his second round defeat, outclassed Praveen Menon in 26 moves and closed in on the six joint leaders, who are half-a-point ahead of him in the 8th National Under-18 Boys and Girls Chess Championship here.

Harikrishna started the game in English opening and Menon from Kerala found no answers to the sensible moves played by the former U-10 champion, who started the championship a bit off-colour.

The 1996 National sub-junior champion P Mahesh Chandran 3.5 of Tamil Nadu shocked Manish Kumar of Bihar in just 13 moves and joined the leaders after the end of four rounds.

In a Pric defence game Manish Kumar mishandled the opening and resigned the game when faced with heavy attack.

In the girls section, four players are leading the table jointly with 3.5 points each.

Bengal8217;s Saptarshi Roy Chawdhury 3.5 succeeded in breaking the Sicilian defence of Prathmesh Mokal 2.5 of Maharashtra to earn the lead along with SunderrajanKidambi 3.5, who drew his game against teammate MR Venkatesh.

In a hard fought game of Ruy Lopez opening, Kidambi sacrificed a pawn for active positioning of his pieces, but when time trouble arose neither player was ready to risk a defeat. The two agreed for a draw after 36 moves.

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TV Kartikeyan TN tried hard to break the French defence of S Satyapragyan Orissa but after 30 moves they agreed to draw in an equal ending.

Bharat Gupta 3 of Rajasthan beat teammate and U-10 National champion Abhijit Gupta 2 while on the other board Abhishek Shrivastav 3 defeated teammate Amit Dad.

In the girls section, the four overnight leaders maintained their joint lead with 3.5 points as they draw their games among themselves.

World under-10 champion Koneru Humpy 3.5 drew her game against MR Sangeetha 3.5 while International Woman Master Nisha Mohota 3.5 drew with Asian sub-junior girls champion Aarthie Ramaswamy 3.5 from a Sicilian defence game after 53 moves.

Important 4th roundresults

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D Ravishankar Mah 2.5 drew with Vikramjeet Singh Mani 2.5; RR Laxman TN 3 bt Arjun Oberoi Mah 2; P Harikrishna AP 3 bt Praveen R Menon Ker 2; Himanshu Sharma Har 3 bt Beenish Bhatia AP 2; Vikas Sharma Pun 3 bt Praharsh KP Ker 2; Bharat Gupta Raj 3 bt Abhijeet Gupta Raj 2; MS Tej Kumar Kar 3 bt RS Kashelkar Mah 2; Yashraj Aidasani Mah 2 bt Kamble VR Mah 3; R Naveen TN 2 bt CJ Arvind TN 3; Pramod N Kar 3 bt Saurabh Soni MP 2; A Srivastava Raj 2.5 bt Amit Dad Raj 1.5; Akashdeep Har 2 bt Utsav Srivastava UP 1; S Rishipal Singh AP 2 bt Jilesh Gandhi Guj 1; Valay Parikh Guj 2 bt H Mishra UP 1; DM Modi Guj 1 bt SS Banerji Mah 2; C Raja Kumar AP 2 bt AP Singh Pun 1; Vijil M Pujara Guj 2 bt Nirmal EP Ker 1; Nilabh Upadhyay WB 2 bt Hemant Mohta Raj 1; Sunil Verma Raj 2 bt Suneet Singh Har 1; Akash V Thakur Mah 1.5 bt IS Singh Mani 0.5; Hardik Jha Guj 0.5 drew with Ravi Khanna Raj 0.5; Piyush Roy Ori 1 bt NitinChandi 0