Top seed C Megna and Ivana Furtado lead among girls

Panaji, Nov 15 (UNI) Top seed C H Megna of Kerala beat Maithreya D of Andhra Pradesh and Goa's Under-8 world champion Ivana Furtado scored her first point in the girls event in the first round of the National Under-7 Chess Championship for boys and girls here today at Don Bosco Oratory hall.

In the boys event, Sai Akshai of Andhra Pradesh beat Goa's Girish Kulkarni while Abhay P Singh of Punjab lost to Orissa's Rockey Kumar on the top two boards.

At the end of the first round, 69 boys and 33 girls are in the joint lead with one point in their respective sections.

Megna, who is the only FUDE rated player in the tournament, has been seeded above world champions Ivana.

Megna C H was given quite a tough fight by Maitreya in a Rui Lopez opening that went on for 67 moves. Other players C R Varsha, K Nividita both Tamil Nadu and Akhila of Andhra Pradesh also scored easy wins.

Among the boys, Divyam Kushagra of Bihar tried the Reti opening against Abhhimanyu Puranik of Maharastra. However, Maharastra boy gained the positional advantage and scored the full point on the 60th move.

Among the local players of Goa, Sumukh Pinge played well against queen pan opening of Anirudh of Karnataka and check-mated him on the 38th move. David Velho won his opponents queen on the 5th move itself and wrapped up the game on the 23rd move.

Snehil Shetty and Rishubh Naik are also on one point. However, Saish Mahale, Pranav Mahatme, Girish Kulkarni, Ritvik Parab lost to their oustation opponents.

Among the local girls, Riya Sawant won her game while Reema Naik, Nadia Dias, Vidula Dempo and Gauri Hadkonkar lost their games.

As many as 140 boys and 65 girls are participating in the open event.

UNI SRN KU DH RS2004