WORLD JUNIOR CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP 2023: ROUND 10 and 11 (Final Report)

The 10th round of the World Junior Chess Championship did not turn out to be a good one for medal-seeking Indian players.

GM Pranav Anand playing White against 1st-seeded American GM Hans Neimann went into the Steinitz variation of the French Defense. Neimann opted for the solid 7.a6 followed by the b5 variation. The game went into an interesting middlegame where at the 22. White played Nac5 trying to sacrifice a pawn and get initiative on the kingside. Instead, it would have been interesting too if he had played 22.Rc3 and focussing on the c-file.Some accurate moves by the American GM and the inability of White’s Kingside to attack cost Pranav the full point. He is on 6.5 points out of 10 rounds.

IM Dushyant Sharma, who had a good tournament (missed GM norm chances on 1-2 occasions), playing Black lost to IM Rodrigue-Lemieux, Shawn of Canada. Duhsyant played the closed Catalan with 7….b5 (popular nowadays). Dushyant had an excellent opportunity on the 19th move where he could have played the brilliant move Kh8 sacrificing the Queen for tremendous counterplay. Unfortunately, he did not play Kh8. But, a blunder by White on the 20th move Qf3 left Dushyant in a clearly winning position. He should have easily sealed the game but Dushyant overlooked the brilliant 30. Nc3 and gradually kept on missing opportunities which led to a painful defeat.

IM Harshavardhan GB played White against IM Boyer Mahel of France. After seeing that Boyer only plays French as Black, Harsha prepared an interesting line against French and went for that in the game. However, Harsha played an inaccuracy in the opening after Black’s 8….-f6. He should have gone for the solid exf6 whereas he played Nf4. From there on, the game was a complete roller coaster with both sides getting tremendous chances to get winning advantage positions. In the end, Harsha capitalized on Black’s wrong moves and went on to win a fine game.

Vignesh B, playing back against lower-rated Leal Escamilla, Daniel Zinedine (1816), drew the game.

Round 10: Girls

WIM Mounika Akshaya was on 6.5 out of 9 rounds and a win in the 10th round would have given a sure shot to aim for the medal. She played WIM Obregon Garcia, Roxangel. Mounika had a decent position and after inaccuracies from White in the opening and was completely winning Move 26. Instead of 26….- Nf4, Rg4 followed by Nb4 and Nxc2 was an easy win for Mounika but due to time pressure, she couldn’t find the best moves for the next 5-10 moves which led White to consolidate the position and find a perpetual to draw the game. A costly miss from Mounika.

WGM Rakshitta Ravi, playing White against WFM Mikheeva, Galina got a stabilized position out of the opening. 16.h4 would have sealed her advantage but 16. Nd4 gave Black a chance to get counterplay on the kingside. The game had its share of ups and downs with Rakshitta suffering a defeat after 43 moves.

Amulya Guruprasad, playing Black against Garcia Ortega, Natalia Belen lost her game and was on 3.5 points out of 10 rounds.

Round 11:

In the boys’ section, GM Pranav Anand, playing Black pieces against IM Flores Quillas, Diego Saul Rodri, went for a double-edged opening strategy. A bad move on move 23 from White gave Pranav an opportunity to play the amazing Nce5!!, thereby seizing the initiative and winning eventually.

IM Harshavardhan, playing against GM Pettkov, Momchil, equalized in the opening but a horrific blunder 24….-Nc5 gave him a completely lost position. White seized the opportunity and went on to win the game.

IM Dushyant Sharma, playing White against IM Fromm, Marius, got a slight advantage from the opening. A bad move on 24. Rhd1 saw Black taking the initiative, taking Queen for his two rooks and building a good position to win. A decisive blunder on 34. Ka4 from Dushyant saw IM Fromm taking the full point.

Vignesh.B, ended the tournament with a commanding win over higher-rated FM Ramos Silvera, Roberto Alejandro. Playing White, Vignesh got a strategically advantageous position out of a Maroczy Bind. He converted the position slowly to a winning Queen endgame and won eventually on move 66.

In the girls section, WIM Mounika played White against WIM Mkrtchyan, Mariam. Mounika went into the solid Colle Zukertot variation and had a decent position. But, inaccuracy on move 16. Ndf3 gave Black a chance to come back into the game with dxc4. After some exchanges, Black got a good position which kept Mounika under some pressure. Mistakes in time pressure from Mounika didn’t help the cause and Black took home a full point.

WGM Rakshitta Ravi, playing Black against WFM Ter-Avetisjana, Agnesa Stepania, went into a Queens Indian type structure. The middlegame saw White take the initiative and get a clear advantageous position. But, maybe because of the last round, White did not take the advantage seriously and both players agreed to take a draw after 30 moves.

Amulya, playing White against Dotor Martinez, Zoe, finished her World Junior campaign with a nice win. She took her tally to 4.5 points.

FINAL REPORT:

GM Pranav Anand had his chances to finish on the podium but some hard losses with Neimann and Maurizzi, Marc`andria (the eventual winner), and a couple of draws (where he was winning) dragged him to 10th position. All in all, he had a solid world Junior with +11 ELO gain and 10th position. He scored 7.5 out of 11 rounds.

IM Harshavardhan GB was in the hunt for a top 3 finish until round 9. A painful loss with Makarian was a setback for the youngster (in a dead-drawn ending). But, he has some nice wins under his belt and finished with 6.5 points out of the possible 11 rounds with an ELO gain of 9 points.

Vignesh B, with his last-round win, took his tally to 6.5 out of 11 with a whopping rating increase of 32 points. He gained a lot of exposure from this tournament and is an IM in making

IM Dushyant Sharma probably had one of the best events in his life, coming closer to GM norm on a  couple of occasions. He was on 6 out of 8 points and was going smoothly for a podium finish chance and a GM norm where things tilted in the wrong direction and he ended up losing his last 3 games. Nevertheless, he gained +10 ELO and we feel that he will come back stronger.

Coming to the girls’ section, Mounika Akshaya had given us the medal hope right until the end as she played some very good chess throughout the event. Coming fresh from an Asian Junior Bronze, she continued her form and had a complete winning position in Round 10, which if won would have got her into the top 3-5 placings. She drew the 10th and lost her 11th round to finish 10th place and gained 37 ELO points.

WGM Rakshitta Ravi, touted to be one of the favorites to clinch the title, had a very good start. But, 2 back to back losses in the 6th and 7th rounds slowed her progress in the event and even after some good games after round 7, she couldn’t come back strong to finish in the Top 10. Nevertheless, she will come back stronger in the coming days.

Amulya Guruprasad finished the event with 4.5 out of 11 rounds. But, this score does not show how well she played her games. There were a lot of misses from the event for her and could have easily scored another 1-2 points. She is a talent to watch out for.