2018 World Juniors 05-06: IM Karthik Venkataraman is unbeatable

FIDE World Junior and Girl Under 20 Chess Championship 2018

Report by IM Ravi Teja

Gebze, Turkey: The World Juniors Chess Championship has commenced on September 5. This eleven-round event will run until September 15th. India has a strong contingent consisting of 10 participants in the Open and 7 in the Girls championship.

Karthik Venkataraman, who is the 55th GrandMaster and a firebrand player on the board is cruising through the World Juniors Championship. This prestigious event was earlier won by only three Indians in the past: GM Viswanathan Anand (1987), GM P. Harikrishna (2004), and GM Abhijeet Gupta (2008). Now, India’s brightest hopes are on the shoulders of this Latest GrandMaster from Andhra Pradesh.

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In Round 6, Karthik outplayed his fellow Indian GM Vr. Aravind Chithambaram after Aravind miscalculated a variation on move 29.Nxd5. After a series of complications, Black stood with decisive material with which Karthik converted easily to a full point placing himself with 5/6 just behind the leaders GM Maghsoodloo Parham(IRI) and IM Sindarov Javokhir(UZB).

GM Karthikeyan Murali [Photo: Amruta Mokal/ ChessBase India]

Other Indians in the fray, GM Karthikeyan Murali, GM Narayanan SL, GM Abhimanyu Puranik are on 4.5/6

In the Girls Championship, WIM Komeriki Nino of Georgia is maintaining the pole position with 6 points. WIM Mahalakshmi and Meenal Gupta are with 4 points respectively. In Round 6, Meenal Gupta and Isha Sharma won with much higher rated opponents WFM Kanakova Natalie (CZE) and Caglar Sila (TUR) respectively.

BO.		NAME	RTG	FED	PTS	RES.	PTS		NAME	RTG	FED
1	GM	Maghsoodloo, Parham	2649	IRI	5½		5½	IM	Sindarov, Javokhir	2484	UZB
2	GM	Firouzja, Alireza	2582	IRI	5		5	IM	Vavulin, Maksim	2559	RUS
3	IM	Karthik, Venkataraman	2519	IND	5		5	GM	Tabatabaei, M.Amin	2576	IRI
4	GM	Van Foreest, Jorden	2624	NED	4½		4½	IM	Lobanov, Sergei	2535	RUS
5	GM	Hakobyan, Aram	2554	ARM	4½		4½	GM	Donchenko, Alexander	2614	GER
6	GM	Karthikeyan, Murali	2605	IND	4½		4½	GM	Puranik, Abhimanyu	2524	IND
7	GM	Esipenko, Andrey	2593	RUS	4½		4½	IM	Thybo, Jesper Sondergaard	2499	DEN
8	GM	Kollars, Dmitrij	2536	GER	4½		4½	GM	Petrosyan, Manuel	2581	ARM
9	GM	Liang, Awonder	2575	USA	4½		4½	GM	Santos Ruiz, Miguel	2524	ESP
10	IM	Christiansen, Johan-Sebastian	2525	NOR	4½		4½	GM	Sunilduth Lyna, Narayanan	2573	IND

Girls Pairings, Round 7 on 11/9/2018 at 5:30 pm

BO.		NAME	RTG	FED	PTS	RES.	PTS		NAME	RTG	FED
1	WIM	Dordzhieva, Dinara	2318	RUS	5		6	WIM	Khomeriki, Nino	2313	GEO
2		Maltsevskaya, Aleksandra	2234	RUS	5		5	WGM	Paramzina, Anastasya	2222	RUS
3	FM	Gorti, Akshita	2315	USA	4½		4½	IM	Tsolakidou, Stavroula	2393	GRE
4	FM	Antova, Gabriela	2292	FID	4½		4½	FM	Assaubayeva, Bibisara	2371	RUS
5	WFM	Potapova, Margarita	2277	RUS	4½		4	WIM	Sieber, Fiona	2277	GER
6	WGM	Tokhirjonova, Gulrukhbegim	2369	UZB	4		4	WIM	Mahalakshmi, M	2213	IND
7	WIM	Haussernot, Cecile	2237	FRA	4		4	WIM	Zhu, Jiner	2364	CHN
8	WGM	Hojjatova, Aydan	2356	AZE	4		4	WCM	Song, Yuxin	2156	CHN
9	WIM	Unuk, Laura	2299	SLO	4		4	WFM	Nurgali, Nazerke	2080	KAZ
10	WFM	Sliwicka, Alicja	2272	POL	4		4		Meenal, Gupta	1963	IND