Mary Gomes assured of Asian Junior chess title

Mumbai, Dec 20 (UNI) WIM Mary Ann Gomes assured herself of pocketing the girls' title in Asian Junior chess championship after a comfortable victory over WIM N Kruthika with a round to spare on the eighth day of the tourney here today.

Playing with white, Gomes, who was already having one point lead, wrapped up the game against Kruthika in 30 moves.

On the second board, P Priya played e4 to which Padmini Rout replied with Sicilian Defence. In the middle game, Priya got pawn of Padmini.

But in the endgame, she was not able to force the issue and had to be content with a draw in 60 moves.

In the boys section, Ashwin Jayaram shocked top seed GM Parimarjan Negi to become the sole leader after eight rounds with 6.5 points.

Ashwin adopted not so popular Guico Piano. The game was equal but Parimarjan pushed hard, in which Ashwin took a slight advantage and won a pawn. In the Rook end game, he fought hard to win the game.

On the second board, the game between Vishnu Prasanna and Shyam Sunder ended in a draw after both started with Ruy Lopez.

On the third board, K Priyadarshan playing with black pieces replied with Nimzo Indian Defence. Both the players agreed for draw in the Rook versus Bishop endgame after 58 moves.

Shyam Sunder, P Karthikeyan and Vishnu Prasanna are in the second place with six points.

UNI