P Karthikeyan was the surprise champion as he pipped Ashwin Jayaram in the tie-break after both had tallied seven points each in the final round of the Asian junior chess Championship which concluded at the Goregaon Sports Club on Friday...
The battles were fought till the last man on board, no short draws and the suspense was maintained till almost the final minutes in an engrossing ninth and final round of the Asian junior chess Championship which concluded at the Goregaon Sports Club on Friday. P Karthikeyan was the surprise champion as he pipped Ashwin Jayaram in the tie-break after both had tallied seven points each.
Vishnu Prasanna who was leading well past the mid-way stage of the event fell prey to nerves and lost to Karthikeyan while Ashwin salvaged a draw against Shyam Sundar in a dead-lost appearing position.
Karthikeyan won the gold, Ashwin the silver and Shyam Sundar the bronze. Top seed and lone GM in fray Parimarjan Negi defeated K Priyadarshan to finish fourth. Karthikeyan as the champion earned the IM title and a GM norm.
In the girls’ section Mary Ann Gomes, who had already won the title with a round to spare on Thursday, defeated Kruthika Nadig to tally a fantastic 8.5/9 score. The Arbiter-in -Chief also declared that Mary had completed all the technical criteria to be India's brand new WGM.
The other youngster to impress in this event was Padmini Rout from Orissa who had also bagged the silver medal.
Ashwin adopted the Sicilian-Najdorf and sacrificed a pawn early for initiative. Shyam Sundar spurned a draw offer on the 12th turn and simplified the position to have an extra pawn.
The players had castled on opposite flanks and Shyam Sunder wasted no time in steering the game to a rook and minor piece each ending where the extra pawn would have done the trick for him. Ashwin however defended stubbornly and was rewarded when Shyam lost a pawn and the game immediately tilted towards a draw. Shyam with tears streaking down his face continued gamely but had to settle for a draw.
Results (ninth round): Boys: Shyam Sundar (6.5) drew with Ashwin Jayram (7); P Karthikeyan (7) bt Vishnu Prasanna (6); Parimarjan Negi (6.5) bt K Priyadarshan (5.5); Aditya Udeshi (5.5) lt to T Purushothaman (6.5); Lalith Babu (6.5) bt Deep Sengupta (5); S P Sethuraman (6) bt Bitan Bannerjee; Akshat Khamparia (5) lt to Saravana Krishnan (6); S Nitin (5.5) bt Sagar Shah (5); Aziz Sharify (5) drew with B Adhiban (5); Debashis Das (5) drew with Swayam Mishra (5).
Girls: Krutikka Nadig (4.5) lt to Mary Ann Gomes (8.5); Padmini Rout (7) bt Soumya Swaminathan (5); Kiran Manisha Mohanty (6) bt S Harini (4.5); P Sivasankari (5) lt to P Priya (5.5); Atousa Pourkashiyan (5) bt Mohana Priya (5); Tara Rahimi (2.5) lt to P Uthara (5); BhaktiJuikar (2) lt to Shamima Liza Akter (4); Pon Krithika (5) bt Sonakshi Rathore (0.5 ); Sriharika Y G (3) drew with Mitali Patil (4).
