45th National Junior Chess Championship & 30th National Under 19 Girls’ Chess Championship

PSNA College of Engineering & Technology – 45^th National Junior Chess Championship & 30^th National Under 19 Girls’ Chess Championship

By R.Anantharam, International Arbiter

Runner up in World Under 16 championship and grandmaster Aravindh is on cloud nine at the end of the ninth round of the PSNA College of Engineering & Technology 45^th National Junior Chess Championship, organised by PSNA College of Engineering & Technology, DIndigul and Golden Knights Chess Academy, today. He has so far scored 8 points and has increased his lead by a full point by defeating his co grandmaster karthikeyan Murali, On the distaff side, Tamil Nadu’s WIM Michelle Catherina continued her to hold her lead of half a point over her nearest rivals, with 7.5 points.

The much awaited game arising from Taimanov variation of Sicilian defence between the top two grandmasters Karthikeyan Murali and Aravindh Chithambaram of Tamil Nadu was a sort of pyrotechnic display. Karthikeyan chose to remove Aravindh’s advanced pawn on d3, giving up his rook for a bishop on 19^th move. Two moves later, Aravindh was adventurous enough to castle his king on the queen side, which was already ripped open by Karthikeyan. The attacks and counter attacks by both players yielded two rooks to Karthikeyan and a rook and bishop to Karthikeyan. Aravindh’s powerful outside passer pawn favoured him to win the game.

The second board game played by international master G Akash and B Kumaran, both hailing from Tamil Nadu was also a Sicilian defence, but with Rossolimo variation. Akash ended up on the losing side, the leader until seventh round going down in two consecutive rounds. Akash created a passer pawn on b- file, but was forced to lose his knight for his opponent’s pawn. After exchanging queens, Akash was left with three isolated pawns to that of a bishop and a pawn of Kumaran. Akash resigned the game on 42^nd move.

Michelle , in fine fettle, crushed Kerala’s Hilmi Parveen, who opened with Ruy Lopez game. Michelle shattered the pawn structure of Hilmi and her pieces on the seventh rank played havoc to post a win in just 32 moves. WFM Srija Seshadri’s king’s gambit did not produce a desired result for her against former World Under 8 & 12 girls’ champion R. Vaishali. Vaishali’s superior end game play helped her to get a full point and to go up in the ladder to the second spot in the leaders’ table.