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

PSNA College of Engineering and Technology
45th National Junior Chess Championship & 30th National Under 19 Girls’ Chess Championship – By Mr.R.Anantharam, International Arbiter

Top two seeded grandmasters Karthikeyan Murali and Aravindh Chithambaram, both from Tamil Nadu scored fluent wins to lead a pack of 23 players, at the end of the second round of the PSNA College of Engineering and Technology 45th National Junior Chess Championship, organised by Golden Knights Chess Academy, in association with Dindigul District Chess Academy at the college campus today. As regards the upsets of the day, third seeded Harsha Barathakoti of Telangana was held to a draw by Atharva Godbole of Maharashtra and international master Chakravarthy Reddy of Telangana was overwhelmed by Saurabh Anand of Bihar. When Baivab Mishra of Odisha opted the hyper accelerated variation of Sicilian defence, Karthikeyan exchanged the queens on the 7th move, denying a chance to his opponent to castle. Karthikeyan’s king safety became vulnerable on the 11th move itself by a minor piece exchange. Unperturbed Karthikeyan exchanged all the pieces leading to a rook and equal pawns ending. His superior end game technique gained a pawn for him on 31st move. Realising that the c- passer pawn could not be stopped from queening, Baivab resigned on 41st move.

Aravindh Chithambaram’s Grunfeld defence game fetched a pawn by his clever knight manoeuvre on the 13th move against his team mate S. Adhithya. When Aravindh offered a queen exchange on 27th move, Adhithya did not accept it, only to place his queen on a very vulnerable square c3. When his queen was trapped by the fierce attack by Aravindh’s two rooks, Adhithya surrendered on the 33rd move.
Y Saranya of Tamil Nadu played Larsen’s opening against the top seed GK Monnisha also of Tamil Nadu, wherein the latter castled on the queen side. Monnisha won exchange by a skewer on 35th move and her dynamic pieces forced Saranya only to defend, enabling Monnisha to wrap the game in 42 moves.

Former Under 8 and Under 12 world champion R. Vaishali of TN encountered some difficulties in the Semi Slav defence game by Sunyuktha CMN of TN, because of the three connected pawns to her opponent towards the end game. But, her king walked to the centre to mop them and Vaishali’s rook was superior to the bishop of her opponent to pocket a point for her. In an almost equal position, N Akshaya of Tamil Nadu failed to race against time to lose the game to the third seeded WIM Michelle Catherina, winner of the Under 20 girls’ title in the recent Commonwealth Championship. K Priyanka of Coimbatore, who recently qualified for the National Premier Women Championship lost to Harshita Guddanti of AP.

Important Results of 2^nd Round