Valay shocks Venkatesh

AHMEDABAD, May 29: Second-seeded Valay Parikh of Gujarat scored a morale boosting victory over number one MR Venkatesh of Tamil Nadu in the boys under-14 section in the fifth round of the 11th Centurion Bank National Childrens Chess Championships at the Indian Institute of Management campus here today.

With this victory, Valay enhanced his chances of grabbing the title and also emerged clear leader with 5 points. Valay began with the usual E4 and Venkatesh opted for early 58230;.E5 line of Sicilian Defence. Both the players struggled to gain control of the D5 square. Venkatesh went for the kingside attack while Valay opted for centre attack. Venkatesh than committed a fatal blunder when the pink of the rook at E7 square proved deadly for the Black. Valay went in for the kill and won the match easily.

In the under-14 girls, N Sandhya of Kerala ranked 44 emerged clear leader with 4.5 points after completion of fifth round. Today she beat Aparna Krishna of Tamil Nadu ranked 10th.

Sandhya began with E4 movewhich was replied by Krishna with a Tarrasch Variation of French Defence. Krishna was groping and Sandhya completed her victory in just 25 moves. JE Kavitha of Tamil Nadu is just half a point behind the leader.

In the under-12 section top-seeded Tania Sachdev of Delhi was in the lead with 6 points while three others Kasturi, B Latha and M Priyadarshini were sharing the second spot with 5 points each to their credit. In the boys section, top-seeded P Harishna of Andhra Pradesh was forced to draw his match with Subham Das of West Bengal. Harikrishna and Nilabh Upadhya were sharing the lead with 5.5 points each.