Reddy, Shivam

Panaji, Nov 20 (UNI) The 20th National U-7 Chess Championship for boys and girls is poised for an intersting finish after the end of the penultimate round here today.

Reventh Reddy (8.5) and Sai Akshay( 8.5) of Andra Pradesh and Shivam Srivastav (8.5) of Uttar Pradesh shared the lead in the boys section. While in the girls section, overnight leader C H Meghana (8) of Kerala despite losing still leads with C R Varsha of Tamilandu.

Revanth Reddy played the phillidor defense and made a mistake in endgame to lose against Shivam Srivastav.

On the second board Sai Akshay played the black side of the Ruy Lopez and castled on the queen side. He managed to outwit S Bidyananda (7) of Manipur in the tactical battle that followed.

Yeshwanth N S (8) of AP faced the modren Benoni defense against Grahesh Y (7) also of AP. He attacked on the queen side, created a passed pawn which he went on to Queen later, forcing Grahesh to resign resigned on move 47. Jain Jeet (7) of Gujarat lost to Srinivas Venkatraman (8) of Maharastra in the Ruy Lopez while Jereome Ebenezer (8) of Tamil Nadu out classed Kapil Ghatwal (7) of Maharashtra using the Guico Piano.

In the girls section, Meghna miscalculated in the endgame in the race to queen their pawns and lost to Preethi (7.5) of Pondicherry.

C R Varsha beat Madhumita (7.5) of AP, after her opponent gave away a knight for nothing on 17th move. Akhila S (6.5) of AP neglected her defense and was mated on the 33rd move, while Ivana Furtado (7.5) of Goa easily beat Shreya Chakraborty (6) of West Bengal.

Other important games in boys section: Anantharam R U (7.5) of Karnatka beat Vignesh B (6.5) of Tamil Nadu. Aditya M (6) of TN lost to Saradhara Preet (7.5) of Gujarat.

Points of Goan boys after 10th round: Shehil Shetty (6.5), Anirudha Bhat (5.5), Tatvesh Sawant (5), Rishub Naik (5), Devid Velho (5), Saish Mahale (4), Sumukh Pinge (4), Ashis Rebelo (3.5), Saish Bandodkar (3), Rirviz Parab (3), Pranav Mahatme (3) and Girish Kulkarni (3).

Other important girls games: Rutuja Bakshi( 7) beat Tejaswini Sagar( 6) both of Maharastra, Bharkavi S ( 6) of TN lost to Tejashvini P(7) of AP, Chadreyee Hazra (7) of WB beat Sheha NG(6) of Pondicherry.

Goan girls points after 10th round: Ivana Furtado( 7.5), Nadia Dias( 5.5), Riya Sawant( 4), Sakshi Prabhu( 5), Reema Naik( 4), Gauri Hadkonkar( 3.5), Saili Parulekar and Vidula Dempo 3 points each.

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