Diptayan Ghosh of West Bengal and Athul Krishna S of Kerala shared the lead with 6.5 points each after seven rounds of the Edurite co-sponsored National under-9 chess championship at the St Joseph’s Composite Pre-university College here on Tuesday.
In the girls section, four players — Ivana Maria Furtado (Goa), Shoumi Mukherjee (West Bengal), Dharani Sree R and Mahalakshmi M (both Tamil Nadu) — were in joint lead with six points each after seven rounds.
In the boys section, the top board game saw a tough fight between top-seeded Diptayan and Andhra Pra-desh’s Mohineesh CH, who was the sole leader after the sixth round on Monday.
Diptayan on song
Both opted for the Queen Pawn opening but the Bengal player worked on his game and moved to a position of strength from an equal position.
Diptayan, playing white, played correct positional chess to win the game in 59 moves to put an end to his rival’s winning streak. Mohineesh shares the second spot with four others.
On the second board, Athul Krishna did well to checkmate Samyak Baid of Maharashtra in 70 moves. Athul opted for the Centre Counter game against Samyak’s ‘e4’ opening. On the 17th move, Samyak lost the exchange and his rival grabbed the advantage to win the game in style.
In the top board encounter in the girls section, unrated Ivana pulled off a win against overnight leader Monnisha G K of Tamil Nadu in a game arising out of the Queen Pawn opening. There were 58 moves made before Monnisha was checkmated.
The second board saw a long game between Shoumi and Sunyasakta of Orissa. Shoumi lived up to expectations and clinched the win in 86 moves.
Results (seventh round):
Boys: Diptayan Ghosh (WB, 6.5) bt Mohineesh CH (AP, 6); Samyak Baid (Mah, 5.5) lt to Athul Krishna S (Ker, 6.5); Sidhant Mohapatra (Ori, 6) bt Rai Rakshith T (Goa, 5); Adarsh Shrivastava (UP, 5.5) drew Akshay Bharadwaj (Kar, 5.5); Sayan Majumdar (WB, 6) bt Aravindh Chithambaram (TN, 5); Chinmay Routray (Ori, 5) lt to Harikrishnan Mohanan (Goa, 6); Sabareesh M (TN, 5) lt to Harshal Shahi (Del, 6); Satvik M (Kar, 5.5) bt RV Adith (TN, 4.5); Devashish Kumar (Bih, 4.5) lt to Hemanth Kumar P (AP, 5.5); Shaikh Nubairshah (Mah, 5) drew Hetul Shah (Guj, 5).
Girls: Ivana Maria Furtado (Goa, 6) bt Monnisha G K (TN, 5.5); Shoumi Mukherjee (WB, 6) bt Sunyasakta Satpathy (Ori, 5); Andria L D'Souza (Kar, 5) lt Mahalakshmi M (TN, 6); Dharani Sree R (TN, 6) bt Abirami R (TN, 5); N Madhumitha (AP, 4.5) lt to Sweety Patel (Guj, 5.5); Varsha C K (TN, 4.5) lt to Ashwini U (TN, 5.5); Rutuja Bakshi (Mah, 4.5) lt to Smaraki Mohanty (Ori, 5.5); Meghna CH (Ker, 5) bt Preethy P (Pon, 5); Divya Garg (Mah, 5) bt Tejaswini Sagar (Mah, 4); Prakruthi A (TN, 5) bt Gauri Keshav Hadkonkar (Goa, 4).
