India’s top players enjoyed mixed luck in round four of the World Youth Chess Championship, with R Praggnanandhaa scoring a comfortable victory and P Iniyan eking out a tough draw even while Divya Deshmukh suffered an upset defeat in Mumbai on Friday.
FIDE Master Srihari LR was the dark horse of the day, shocking top-seed FIDE Master Sreeshwan Maralakshikari in the Under-14 Open category.
GMs Praggnanandhaa and Iniyan topped the points table in the Open Under-18 with 3.5 points each, along with IM Aryan Gholami of Iran.
Praggnanandhaa, who had endured an exhausting draw in round three against IM Artur Davtyan of Armenia, recovered smartly to beat IM Nikoloz Petriashvili of Georgia. He opted for the King’s Pawn Opening, which was countered with the popular Sicilian-Defence by Davtyan. After a complex middle-game, the Indian swiftly outplayed him in the endgame in 40 moves to take home an important point.
Iniyan, however, could not emulate Praggnanandhaa, but will be happy to have held firm against a higher-ranked Gholami.
The country’s other hope and top seed in the Girls U14, IWM Divya Deshmukh, who also had to be content with a draw on Thursday night, suffered an upset defeat to slide down on the leader-board. She lost to Mongolia’s Woman Candidate Master Bat-Erdene Mungunzul.
In a London System game, Divya failed to obtain any tangible counterplay even as Bat-Edene’S double bishops reigned supreme on the board. This led to a blunder by the Indian, leading to her resignation on move 45.
Indian IM Aditya Mittal (Open) U18 and Lakshmi C (Girls U16) were the stars of round three on Thursday, with the former drawing against top seed Sargsyan and the latter scoring her second straight upset against Serbian Woman FIDE Master Jovana Srdanovic.
Key results:
Round four:
U18 Open: P Iniyan (IND; 3.5) drew with Aryan Gholami (IRI; 3.5); R Praggnanandhaa (Ind; 3.5) bt Nikoloz Petriashvili (GEOl 3); Valentin Buckels (GER; 3) drew with Shant Sargsyan (ARM; 3)
U18 Girls: Honorata Kucharska (POL; 3.5) drew with Polina Shuvalova (RUS; 3); Vantika Agrawal (IND; 3) drew with Assel Serikbay (KAZ; 3)
U16 Open: Sankalp Gupta (IND; 3) lost to Rudik Makarian (RUS; 4)
U16 Girls: Lakshmi C (IND; 3.0) lost to Leya Garifullina (RUS; 4.0); Nurgali Nazerke (KAZ; 4) bt Salonika Saina (IND; 3)
U14 Open: Srihari L R (IND; 4.0) beat Sreeshwan M. (IND; 3.0), Alex Colay (USA; 3.5) drew Aydin Suleymanli (AZE; 3.5)
U14 Girls: Dhyana Patel (IND; 3.5) drew Eline Roebers (NED; 3.5); Kurmangaliyeva Liya (KAZ; 3.5) drew Poliakova Varvara (BLR; 3.5).
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