World Junior Chess Championship 2023: Round 6 Report

Fresh from a rest day, Indian boys almost had a perfect day at the board. GM Pranav Anand converted a slightly advantageous opening to a whole point. IM Dushyant Sharma is the star of the day beating a higher-rated GM. IM Harshavardhan surprised his opponent by playing 1.e4 and had a commendable victory. Vignesh B lost to a 2300 IM. WGM Rakshitta Ravi and Amulya suffered losses as WIM Mounikya won a nice game against 2170 WIM—a report by IM CRG Krishna and WIM Tarini Goyal.

Round 6- Boys: GM Pranav Anand was up against IM Ghazarian, Kirk (2473) from the United States of America. Ghazarian opted for French Defense for 1.e4 and the game went into an inferior ending where Black had to play many accurate moves to equalize. Pranav held his nerve and played some good moves such as 21.g4! And 24.Rd1!. A few inaccuracies from both sides saw Pranav get the better of the USA IM in the rook pawn endgame. Pranav is in joint lead with 5 points out of 6 rounds and faces GM Maurizzi from France in the 7th round.

The game of the day for Indians was undoubtedly of IM Dushyant. Playing White against GM Kacharava, Nikolozi, Dushyant went into 6.Bg5 against Black’s Najdorf. After the opening, Dushyant played some very good moves like 11.Be1 and 12. Bf2 teasing his opponent by repeating the moves. It was Kacharava who deviated from the repetition after which Dushyant continued playing good moves with 19.Ndb5 and 22.Kd2.A few inaccuracies from Black saw Dushyant simplifying the position and getting home the much-needed 1 point. Dushyant is also on 5 out of 6 rounds and is in joint lead.

IM Harshavardhan GB playing White against Paredes Guzman (2190) played 1.e4 and surprised him. Bad moves in the late opening phase by Guzman gave a clear advantage to Harshavardhan who got the full point. Harsha is now on 4 out of 6 points and playing GM Kacharava today.

Vignesh lost to IM Flores Quillas, Diego Saul Rodri from White. He went into an inferior position right from the opening and suffered a loss in time pressure.

Round 6- Girls: In the girls section, the much anticipated clash was that of leaders WGM Rakshitta Ravi and IM Yip, Carissa. Rakshitta playing White went into a surprise system against Kings Indian Nge2-Ng3. The game quickly went into a very complex position where both players had to find accurate moves. Rakshitta could have gone into an equal ending with a forced variation with 19.Bg5. But 19.Nd4 was a blunder from Rakshitta and Black got a winning position which Yip converted well.

WIM Mounika Akshaya playing Black against WIM Hernandez Gil (2170), played a solid Queen’s pawn setup and got a clearly better position after the opening. Around moves 20-25, some inaccuracies from White gave Mounika the full point.

Amulya Guruprasad played Black against Maione, Melissa (1931), and got a good position out of the opening. 21…- Nxf5 !! would have won the game for the Indian straight away but she missed that 3 move combination. Instead, she played gxf5 which was a blunder and after Bc1 from white on the 22nd move, Amulya lost her way and suffered a defeat. The tournament is heating up and hope our players hit their peak strength in these crunching games