Valay falls to Roy ploy

Kozhikode, Aug 26: Top seed Valay Parikh of Gujarat courted disaster in the seventh round of the National Sub-junior Boys Chess Champions...

Kozhikode, Aug 26: Top seed Valay Parikh of Gujarat courted disaster in the seventh round of the National Sub-junior Boys Chess Championship when he walked into the poisonous Dragon of Saptarshi Roy of Goodricke Academy, Calcutta at the Indoor Stadium here today.

Saptarshi played practical chess after notching up a pawn on move 24 in the Sicilian Dragon and quickly exchanged the pieces to force a rook and pawn ending where he nursed a passed pawn which won him the point after 70 moves.

With this result, Yashpal Singh Sonwani of MP shot into lead with six points after his 22-move demolition of Yambem Singh of Manipur in Sicilian Najdorf. Yambem consciously avoided the Queen exchange and gave a piece with the hope that he would get a mating attack, but in the end he fell short by a move.

In the girls section, Pratibha’s defeat by Baisakhi Das in Round 6 has thrown open the field. After the seventh round today, Baisakhi Das of West Bengal and Shradha Samani of Maharashtra shared the lead with six pointseach.

Baisakhi Das, however, could not continue her dream run as P. Malarselvi of TN held her to a 54-move draw in Sicilian Defence. Pratibha conceded a draw to Eesha Karvade of Maharashtra in 72 moves in Sicilian Defence.

Nimmy George of Kerala scalped second seed J E Kavitha of TN in 44 moves of Petroff Defence to occupy the second place with 5.5 points.

TOPBOARD RESULTS (ROUND 7)

BOYS: Valay Parikh (Guj) 5 lost to Saptarshi Roy (GNCA) 5.5; Yambem Singh (Mani) 6; Somak Palit (WB) 4.5 lost to R S Prasanna (TN) 5.5; Byomakesh Naik (Ori) 5 drew with Sujeesh (Ker) 5; M K Narasimhan (T Nagar) 5.5 bt R Naveen (Capa) 4.5; Rakesh Agarwal (Bih) 5 drew with Deep Sen Gupta (Bih) 4.5; Deepan Chakravarthy (TN) 4.5 drew with Poobesh Anand (TN) 4.5; Aditya Vikram (UP) 4 lost to K Girija Kumar (AP) 5; S Raghuraman (TN) 5 bt Abhijit Gupta (Raj) 4; Phoobalan (TN) 5 bt Sayantan Dutta (GNCA) 4; Omkar Patvardhan (Mah) 5 bt R Siddharth (Capa) 4; M Satyajit (AP) 4 lost to Soumya Ranjan Mishra (Ori) 4.5; Haribalu (TNagar) 3.5 lost to P Kumaresh (Chrompet) 4.5; Adway Choudhary (WB) 4 drew with Rahul Sangma (Bih) 4; Vigneswaran (TN) 4.5 bt G Rohit (AP) 3.5.

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GIRLS: Malarselvi (TN) 5.5 drew with Baisakhi Das (WB) 6; Shradha Samani (Mah) 6 bt Kruthika Nadig (Mah) 4.5; Nimmy George (Ker) 5.5 bt J E Kavitha (TN) 4.5; Y Pratibha (TN) 5 drew with Eesha Karvade (Mah) 4.5; Amrutha Mokal (Mah) 5 bt N Sandhya (Ker) 4; M Rajadarshini (TN) 4 lost to Mary Ann Gomes (GNCA) 5; Pannaga Magal (Mah) 4 lost to Anuprita Patil (Mah) 5; Saheli Nath (WB) 5 bt Priya (T Nagar) 4; Aswathy Balagopal (Ker) 4 drew with Rucha Karvade (Mah) 4; Aparna Krishna (T Nagar) 3.5 lost to K Preethi (Capa) 4.5; Mathuri Patil (Mah) 4.5 bt Jaya Arunmathai (TN) 3.5; Anuradha Beniwal (Har) 4 drew with Nabeela Farheen (TN) 4.