National Junior and Junior girls 2015

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

By Mr.R.Anantharam, International Arbiter

Former national champion G Akash of Tamil Nadu has a dream run in the PSNA College of Engineering & Technology 45^th National Junior Chess Championship, organised by PSNA College of Engineering & Technology and Golden Knights Chess Academy in the college campus. His seventh straight win in seven rounds has helped him to stay ahead by one point over second seeded grandmaster Aravindh Chithambaram of TN. In the 30^th National Under 19 Girls Chess Championship, GK Monnisha of TN emerged sole leader with 6 points and WIM Mischelle Catherina, also of Tamil Nadu is on second spot with 5.5 points.

International master Akash had to face the Pirc defence from his team mate Akash PC Iyer, a bronze medallist in the World Youth Olympiad 2012. Making use of his opponent’s dormant bishop still on its original place, G Akash made a stunning bishop sacrifice on 29^th move and combined his queen, rook and knight to subdue Akash PC Iyer in 37 moves.

In a Rubinstein variation of French defence Utkal Ranjan Sahoo of Odisha made some miscalculations and sacrificed his bishop on 30^th move, hoping for a checkmate. But, his idea back fired, when Aravindh pseudo sacrificed his queen to establish a winning position after seven more moves. In a Queen’s Gambit Declind game, top seeded grandmaster Karthikeyan Murali of Tamil Nadu made short work of ML Abhilash Reddy of AP in just 30 moves.

The clash between the top two seeds Monnisha and R Vaishali was an interesting game, coming out of English opening by the former. Though Monnisha sacrificed her knight in the middle game, Vaishali had some compensation and the position was equal. Vaishali played a weak queen move to d7 and Monnisha exploited it well. When Monnisha forced the queen exchange on 59^th move to promote her pawn to a fresh queen, Vaishali gave up the fight.

After gaining a pawn on 16^th move, Commonwealth Under 20 girls’ champion Mischelle Catherina played a steady game to outwit Andhra’s G. Lasya. All the other top board games in the girls’ section were drawn.