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India's Padmini Rout scored an impressive victory with plenty of fireworks to maintain her joint lead in the Girls section but favourite Viddit Santosh Gujrathi suffered a shock loss in the sixth round of the LIC World Junior Chess championship in Pune, on Saturday.
Entertaining and enthralling the following spectators, Padmini sacrificed her queen to unveil a spectacular checkmate against Ioana Gelip of Romania. However, joy in the Indian camp was short lived as within minutes of this result, Viddit, India’s best bet for the title was shocked by Aryan Tari of Norway in the Open section.
S L Narayanan continued to impress, drawing against top seed Vladimir Fedoseev of Russia after a marathon fight lasting 76 moves. N Srinath too continued the good work and held higher rated Duda Jan Krzysztof of Poland while Sahej Grover also showed plenty of defensive skills to hold third seed Wei Yi of China.
Padmini and Daria Pustovoita of Russia were in joint lead with five points each while Nandhidhaa defended dourly in an inferior position to draw against higher rated Mo Zhai.
In the Open section the encounter between Lu Shanglei and Jorge Cori on the top board was in progress. S L Narayanan has tallied 5 points, the highest by any Indian.
Ioana opted for the French Defence and despite castling early was hampered by development problems. Padmini did not take time off to castle but instead focussed on launching a major attack on the King-side even as her opponent tried to work her way around the queen-side.
Strangely Ioana tried to gobble up all the pawns that Padmini gave up in her quest for attack and her knight, bishop and rook on the queen-side could never get into the game. On the 27th move Padmini offered to sacrifice her queen which her opponent declined as it would lead to a checkmate.
Padmini has spent plenty of time in the mid-game stages and virtually was living on borrowed time ( 30 seconds increment per move) and had to make around 10 moves in less than a minute. The Romanian however lost way and accepted Padmini’s queen after a while only to be checkmated by a couple of rooks and bishop on the 38th turn. ‘ I had calculated the queen sacrifice well in advance and did not bother much about the lack of time later” said Padmini.
Vidit appeared to be going fine against Aryan Tari of Norway but in all probability overlooked a checkmating trap with the rook and queen and lost out after 45 moves.
Important Results of Open section (Indians unless specified):
Lu Shanglei (Chn) Jorge Cori (Per) ; Vladimir Fedosev (Rus)-4.5 drew S L Narayanan- 5; Yi Wei (Chn)-4.5 drew Sahaj Grover-4.5; Bai Jinshi (Chn) Benjamin Bok (Ned); Paulo Bersamino (Phi) Mikhail Antipov (Rus); Robin Van kampen (ned ) Sayantan Das; Vidit Santosh Gujrathi-3.5 lost to Aryan Tari (Nor)-4.5; Duda Jan Krrzysztof (Pol)-4 drew N Srinath-4 ; Grigoriy Karen (Arm) Sai Vishwesh ; Diptayan Ghosh Vladislav Kovalev (Blr); Nijat Abasov (Aze) Harsha Bharathakoti ; Ulvi Bajarani (Aze) Ankit Rajpara ; Niranjan Navalgund M Karthikeyan.
Girls section:
Sabina Ibrahimova (Aze)-4.5 drew Aleksandra Goryachkina (Rus)-4.5; Sarasadat Khademaisharieh (Iri)-4.5 drew Ann Chumpitaz (Per)-4.5; Daria Pustovoitova-5 bt (Rus) Ivana Maria Furtado-4 ; Mo Zhai (Chn) Pv Nandhidhaa ; Padmini Rout Ioana Gelip (Rou); R Vaishali-3.5 lost to Anna Iwanow (Pol)-4.5; Monisha G K-4 drew Marina Brunello (Ita)-4; Mae Frayna Janelle (Phi)-4.5 bt J Saranya-3.5 ; Pratyusha Bodda-4 bt Meri Arabidze (Geo)-3; Nguyen Thi Mai Hubg (Vie)-4 bt Vantika Agarwal-3.