Tags:
Journalism of Courage
OROPESA DEL MOR, OCT 29: Rahul Sangma and reigning girls8217; under-12 world champion Koneru Humpy won their fifth round games to lead their respective sections at the World boys8217; and girls8217; age-group chess here.
M R Venkatesh upset boy8217;s under-14 top seed David Navara of the Czech Republic to jump into joint second position with four points.
Sangma became the sole leader in the boys8217; under-10 with five points and a victory over Piotr Brodowski of Poland.
Playing with black pieces, he adopted the Queen8217;s Gambit and transposed it into the Queen8217;s Gambit accepted position. He obtained equality winning a piece in the middle game and then consolidated his position with a piece sacrifice to earn two central passed pawns. Faced with certain mate in two moves, Brodowski finally resigned on the 47th move.
Sangma meets top seed Edouard Bannet of France in Round Six and should he get past him, the Indian8217;s chances of winning here will be bright.
Former world under-8 medallist, Venkatesh played the SicilianDefence against the closed system and gained a superior position. Navara sacrificed a piece but could not get adequate compensation and finally opted to resign after a faulty combination saw Venkatesh on the verge of queening his pawn.
In the girl8217;s under-12, top seed Humpy 5 continued to lead the field jointly with third seed Nana Dzagnidze of Georgia.
Aarthie Ramaswamy 5 continued with her winning form to cause a minor upset and jump into joint lead in the girls8217; under-18 category.
The 13th seed defeated Poland8217;s Katarzyna Jurkiewicz to share joint top spot with Eva Moser of Austria, the eighth seed. Aarthie will meet Eva in the sixth round.
Y Pratibha, the 17th seed, defeated Jelena Papovic of Yugoslavia in the girls8217; under-16 category.
Another Indian in the girl8217;s under-12 field Eesha Karavade held fifth seeded Karmen Mar of Slovakia to garner 3.5 points from five rounds.
In boys under-16, Pendyala Harikrishna lost to eighth seed Sergey Grigoriants of Russia. Harikrishna played the FrenchDefence and got into a winning position. But he did not exchange queens and played some weak moves under time pressure after which he lost his E pawn.
His highly rated opponent picked up then on and played the rook and pawn endgame precisely to win a tough game.
Soumya Swaminathan beat Cristina Garcia Bielsa of Spain in girl8217;s under-10 while Shraddha Somani held Maja Detelic of Croatia in the under-14 category.
Promising Tania Sachdev tasted her first defeat when Russia8217;s Tamara Techistiakova beat her in the fifth round.
In the boy8217;s section, Sunil Rangarajan lost to Tong Huang of China while Valay Parikh bounced back from the fourth round defeat to score a win over Spaniard Julio Torado Quintela in the boy8217;s under-18 category.
