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Journalism of Courage
AHMEDABAD, MAY 22: International women master Koneru Humpy and Nabeela Fareen further cemented their claims for the under-14 boys’ and girls’ titles respectively as they maintained a clear lead at the end of the 7th round of the National Children’s Chess Championships here on Monday.
Overnight leader Humpy (7) of Andhra Pradesh defeated Deepan Chakraworty of Tamil Nadu in a Reti Opening game and increased her lead to 1.5 points. Going into the penultimate round on Tuesday, Humpy, who has maintained a clean slate thus far, needs only a draw from two games to win the title.
Fareen was leading her nearest rival in the girls section by a clear one point after a fluent 23-move win over M Amruta of Maharashtra in a Sicilian Paulson game. This took her tally to 6.5 as against her second placed statemate M Priyadarshini (5.5).
Three players – overnight leader K Nadig (Maha), M Rajdarshini (TN) and Shobhana (TN) were sharing the top spot in the girls’ under-12 section with six points from seven rounds while in the boys’ u-12 section, top seed Deep Sengupta and AA Kore were clubbed together at the top with six points.
Playing with black pieces against the leader, Deepan Chakraworthy became over anxious and launched a premature attack on king-side. But Humpy defended correctly and won an exchange and a pawn in the process which was enough for the former World U-10 girls champion to complete a clinical win. Playing with white against Amruta, Farheen sacrificed a bishop in the Sicilian Paulson game to force mate in just 23 moves.
On the second board, Priyadarshini and Anuradha Beniwal of Haryana played out a drab draw.
In the girls’ u-12 section, M Rashmi of T. Nagar Academy, Chennai, was dominating against overnight leader Kruthika Nadig in a Ruy Lopez exchange variation game.
Rashmi, playing white, obtained a slight advantage in the middle game and then pulled it into a favourable ending. But she misjudged the position and drew the game from a winning position, in minor piece ending after 53 moves.
On second table, M Rajdarshini scored a fluent win over T Veemala (AP) in English opening in just 17 moves to join the overnight leader at six points. Shobhana made short work of APT Naik of Orissa in an irregular game to join the two at the top spot.
In the boys section, top seed Deep Sengupta bounced back into contention after playing out draws in the first couple of rounds in the tournament. The Bihar lad scored an impressive victory against A Khamparia (MP) in Sicilian Defence to move up to the top spot.
Playing with black, Khamparia sacrificed a pawn for a pair of bishops but blundered another pawn on 30th move. Sengupta avoided the opposite colour bishop ending and won the game after 46 moves.
