Jharkand girl leads at chess Nationals

Chennai, Nov 7 (UNI) Priyanka Kumari of Jharkhand, with a clean slate of six points has taken the sole lead in the Sri Ramachandra Medical College-Ramco Group-CPCL 20th National Chess Championship for Boys and Girls at the college premises here this evening.

Close behind the undisputed leaders are a trio Michelle Catherine, Srinidhi Nagarajan (both Tamil Nadu) and Mahaswetha Kumar (Assam) with five points each.

However, it was a two-way six-point each joint lead in the Boys sector among the last year World Under-10 Champion Sahaj Grover of Delhi and D Yashas of Karnataka.

The reigning World Under-10 Champion Girish Koushik who lost badly in the previous third and fourth rounds compensated the same by winning the subsequent fifth and sixth rounds today.

In all, two rounds were played today and five more rounds to finish in the remaining four days.

Once again, the Tamil Nadu State Chess Association took a drastic action by removing three players J Sahari (FIDE Rating 1775) (AP), T Bharat Gambha Singh (Manipur) and Swarup Dey Sarkar (West Bengal) from the tournament. The players were all found to be above the specified age as per medical evaluation conducted at the Medical College, the venue of the tournament.

It may be recalled that in the 19th National Boys&Girls Under-9 Chess Championship held at Chennai in June last year, three players Chandana Priya Reddy (AP) (FIDE Rating 2114), A.R.Priya (AP) (FIDE Rating 1978), and Kumar Sanu (Jharkhand) (FIDE Rating 1917) were removed.

Top results of Round 6 boys: Sahaj Grover (Del) 6 bt Fenil Shah (Guj) 5 D Yashas (Kar) 6 bt Shardul Gagare (Mah) 4.5 N Dheeraj Kumar (AP) 5.5 bt Vishnu Gopakumar (Ker) 4.5 Vishwanath Prasad (AP) 4.5 lost to Vian D'Cunha (Kar) 5.5 Megh Patel (Guj) 4.5 drew K Vijaykanth (AP) 4.5 Rishi Thariani (Del) 4 lost to G V Sai Krishna (AP) 5 M L Abhilash Reddy (AP) 4.5 drew Rishi Shankar (Bhr) 4.5 Vaibhav Suri (Del) 5 bt R.Eswar (AP) 4 MSwaroop (TN) 4.5 drew Chandrasish Majumdar (WB) 4.5 Niraj Saripalli (Kar) 5 bt Debarshi Mukherjee (WB) 4 Top results of Round 6 Girls: A Gouthami (AP) 4.5 lost to Priyanka Kumari (Jha) 6 P V Nandhidhaa (TN) 4.5 drew Nisha Patkar (Kar) 4.5 Srinidhi Nagarajan (TN) 5 bt Soumya Srivasstav (Mah) 4 P Sujitha (TN) 4 lost to Mischelle Catherine (TN) 5 Vanessa D'Souza (Kar) 4.5 drew U Ashwini (TN) 4.5 Mahaswetha Kumar (Asm) 5 bt B Pratyusha (AP) 4 Isha Bhave (Mah) 3.5 lost to J Saranya (TN) 4.5 B Jayassri (TN) 3.5 lost to J Vaishnavi (TN) 4.5 Simantini Huchche (Mah) 3.5 lost to J Akhila (AP) 4.5 Top results of Round 5 boys: Chandrasish Majumdar (WB) 4 lost to Sahaj Grover (Del) 5 Fenil Shah (Guj) 5 bt Niraj Saripalli (Goa) 4 S Sridev (TN) 4 lost to D Yashas (Kar) 5 Vishnu Gopakumar (Ker) 4.5 drew Vishwanath Prasad (AP) 4.5 Vian D'Cunha (Kar) 4.5 bt Shiven Khosla (Mah) 4 S S Manikandan (TN) 3.5 lost to N Dheeraj Kumar (AP) 4.5 Shardul Gagare (Mah) 4.5 bt Samrat Ghorai (WB) 3.5 R Ganesh (TN) 3 lost to K Vijaykanth (AP) 4 Krishnaprasad Bindumadhava (Mah) 3 lost to M L Abhilash Reddy (AP) 4 Top results of Round 5 Girls : Priyanka Kumari (Jha) 5 bt P.Sujitha (TN) 4 J Akhila (AP) 3.5 lost to A Gouthami (AP) 4.5 J Sahari (AP) 4.5 drew Vanessa D'Souza (Kar) 4.5 Nisha N Patkar (Kar) 4 bt Lia George (Har) 3 A Kanchana Devi (Pondy) 3 lost to Srinidhi Nagarajan (TN) 4 Agnihotri Ghosh (WB) 3 lost to Mahaswetha Kumar (Asm) 4 P Michelle Catherine (TN) 4 bt Aishwarya (Jar) 3 P V Nandhithaa (Namakkal) 4 bt Akshaya Nandakumar (TN) 3 B Pratyusha (AP) 4 bt Arunima Kalra (Del) 3 U Ashwini (TN) 4 bt Meghna Kaladi (UP) 3 UNI XR JJ PM DB2155