Meghna and Revanath Reddy emerge as National U-7 chess champions

Panaji, Nov 21 (UNI) G V Revanath Reddy of Andhra Pradesh and C H Meghana of Kerala claimed the boys and girls titles respectively on the concluding day of the National U-7 Chess championship.

Revanath Reddy(9.5) of AP beat Sriniwas Venkatraman(8) of Maharashtra to emerge half point ahead of the rest of the field. His nearest rival Sai Akshay (9), also of AP, and Shivam Srivastav (9) of Uttar Pradesh both drew their games.

Revanath faced the Nimzo Indian Defense against Sriniwas and an equal position resulted. But Sriniwas lost his concentration and gifted a Rock and the championship to the lad from Andhra.

Playing on the first board, Akshay lost a pawn in the Giuco Piano opening but Jerome Ebenezer(8.5) of Tamil Nadu could not take an advantage as the game drifted into a drawn Queen ending.

On the third board, Shivam Srivastav, playing the black side of Kings Indian defence against Yeshwant N S(8.5) of Andhra reached a Bishop Vs Knight endgame where he was forced to agree for a draw.

C H Meghna of Kerala played the Guico Piano against Rutuja Bakshi(7) of Maharashtra and took advantage when her opponent allowed her to simplify into a winning pawn ending. Thus she was able to justify her top seeding as the only rated player. Preety P of Pondicherry was the runner up while C R Varsha of Tamil Nadu claimed the third spot.

On the second board, Meghna's closest rival C R Varsha(8) of Tamil Nadu blundered an exchange on move 15 against Preety P(8.5) of Pondicherry and was not able to recover although the game stretched on for 69 moves.

On the third board, Goa's Ivana Furado's(7.5) poor form continued when even though she was exchange up against Tejusvini P(8) of Andhra, she blundered and lost.

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