Manikanda upsets Girish Koushik

Chennai, Nov 5 (UNI) S S Manikanda of Tamil Nadu created a big upset when he outplayed the newly crowned World Under-10 Chess Champion Girish Koushik of Karnataka in the third round of the Sri Ramachandra Medical College- Ramco Group- CPCL 20th National Under-11 Chess Championship at the college premises at Porur, Chennai.

Two rounds-- one in the morning and another one in the evening-- were gone through. At the conclusion of the third round, besides S S Manikandan there were 18 others with three points apiece in the joint lead, whereas in the Girls section V Janu of Tamil Nadu and eight others with the same three points are sharing the top spot.

Girish Koushik, the World Under-12 Champion, with white pieces stretched to far in his kingside against S S Manikandan. It was a Queen's Gambit Declined preferred by the Tamil Nadu's talented boy and held the champion in a tight in the middle game. A nice pawn sacrifice, a perferct attack against King and Queen and not but not the least a free ''c3'' passer paved a way victory when Manikandan gobbled the knight .

Despite losing a piece, Girish continued his losing battle, but the mate on the 70 the move became inevitable.

Girish Koushik adopted an ambitious plan of a king side attack in the white side of a Queen's Gambit Declined. It did not work and Manikandan played imaginatively to keep the uncastled white king in the center and harass it. He sacrificed a pawn to increase pressure on the white queen and king with an advanced passed pawn on c3.

In desperation Girish had to give up a knight. He put up a long fight and played on till he was mated on the 73rd move.

Top results of Round 3 boys: S V Srinath (Chg) 2 lost to Y Sahaj Grover (Del) 3 K Vijaykanth (AP) 2 lost to Y V K Chakravarthy (AP) 3 Fenil Shah (Guj) 3 bt H S Karthik (Kar) 2 G V Sai Krishna (AP) 3 bt Megh Patel (Guj) 2 Mhamal Anurag (Goa) 3 bt M L Abilash Reddy (AP) 2 R Eswar (AP) 2 lost to Rishi Thariani (Del) 3 Aditya Raste (Mah) 2 lost to D Yashas (Kar) 3 Vasant Ruba Varman (TN) 2 lost to Vishwanath Prasad (AP) 3 Chandrasish Majumdar (WB) 3 bt Vaibhav Suri (Del) 2 Girish A Koushik (Kar) 2 lost to S S Manikandan (TN) 3 UNI XR JJ AKJ BST2245