World Junior 09: Two blunders and a missed opportunity

by Aditya Pai - 23/11/2017

Round nine saw two Indians play on the top two boards of the World Junior Championship. R Praggnanandhaa played on board one against tournament leader, Aryan Tari and GM Murali Karthikeyan was playing Kirill Alekseenko on board two. While Praggnanandhaa was only able to draw after getting a better position out of the opening, Karthikeyan blundered in an equal position and had to resign soon after. Arvind Chithambaram, on the other hand, benefitted from his opponent's blunder and won the game immediately. Round 9 report.

The ninth round of the World Junior Chess Championship gave the GM title aspirant, R Praggnanandhaa the best opportunity he could have hoped for at this point in the tournament. He was paired against the tournament leader, GM Aryan Tari. If he could pull out a win, he will take over the lead from his opponent and do his best to remain at the top; if he lost, he could forget about winning the title.

After dominating Awonder Liang in round 8, R Praggnanandhaa got the opportunity the perfect opportunity to take over the lead from the tournament leader, Aryan Tari in round 9 | Photo: Romualdo Vitale

Tari had come to the board with a little surprise for Praggnanandhaa in the opening. With the black pieces, Praggna has favoured the Archangelsk variation of the Spanish Opening quite a bit at this event. Tari, therefore, came prepared with an enterprising line that involved sacrificing the e4 pawn. Sticking to his guns, Praggnanandhaa took the offered pawn and put the onus on his opponent to prove his compensation. Tari did find some compensation in black's awkwardly placed queen and some weak dark squares in black's camp. But soon, Praggnanandhaa -- after a slight inaccuracy by Tari -- began to consolidate his position.

Just when things were about to look bright for the Indian, he made a positional error which put him back under pressure. An additional problem for both players was the mounting time pressure. With little time left on their clock, the two went for natural-looking moves. Praggnanandhaa then gave up his extra pawn and completely equalize the position. The players signed the truce on move 39. IM Sagar Shah analyzed the game every half-an-hour while it was being broadcasted live. ChessBase India's Hindi author, Niklesh Kumar Jain also provided audio updates in Hindi. Do check them out here in case you missed the live broadcast.

Right beside Praggnanandhaa, on board two, was another Chennai boy, Murali Karthikeyan | Photo: Ruggero Percivaldi

After his win with a stunning rook sacrifice in round 8, GM Murali Karthikeyan went for another rook sac in his round nine game against Kirill Alekseenko. Unfortunately, this time it turned out to be a downright blunder. Play opened with a kind of a hybrid between the Italian Opening and the Ruy Lopez in which Karthikeyan had a balanced position with the black pieces until he saw ghosts and gave up an entire rook.

After white's 30.Kh2, Karthikeyan went for the disastrous 30...Rxd4 and after 31.Qxd4, he followed up with Rxe5.

Perhaps, Karthikeyan was expecting to win the queen after 32.fxe5 Bxe5+ but failed to see that after 33.Ng3, he also loses his queen thanks to the pin along the e-file. Alekseenko, however, avoided the line totally with 32.Bxf7+ before taking the rook on e5.

While Karthikeyan lost due to a blunder, Aravindh Chithambaram won thanks to one. | Photo: Amruta Mokal

After three back to back draws in the last three rounds, Aravindh Chithambaram finally scored a win in round nine against the Austrian IM Valentin Dragnev. With the white pieces, Aravindh essayed the Spanish Opening and had almost messed up his initiative when his opponent blundered and allowed white a tactical shot that won him a piece.

Results of Round 9

Bo.	No.		Name	Rtg	Pts.	Result	Pts.		Name	Rtg	No.
1	5	GM	Tari Aryan	2581	7	½ - ½	6½	IM	Praggnanandhaa R	2509	26
2	11	GM	Alekseenko Kirill	2563	6½	1 - 0	6	GM	Karthikeyan Murali	2578	6
3	30	IM	Lomasov Semen	2490	6	½ - ½	6	GM	Petrosyan Manuel	2554	16
4	17	GM	Bai Jinshi	2553	6	½ - ½	6	GM	Tran Tuan Minh	2538	22
5	21	IM	Xu Xiangyu	2543	6	1 - 0	6	FM	Liu Yan	2422	56
6	1	GM	Van Foreest Jorden	2616	5½	1 - 0	6	FM	Sorokin Aleksey	2483	32
7	24	IM	Kantor Gergely	2514	5½	½ - ½	5½	GM	Oparin Grigoriy	2606	2
8	3	GM	Svane Rasmus	2587	5½	½ - ½	5½	IM	Triapishko Alexandr	2508	28
9	7	GM	Aravindh Chithambaram Vr.	2572	5½	1 - 0	5½	IM	Dragnev Valentin	2461	44
10	35	GM	Salomon Johan	2476	5½	½ - ½	5½	GM	Martirosyan Haik M.	2561	12

Rank after round 9

Rk.	SNo		Name	FED	Rtg	Pts.	TB1	TB2	TB3	TB4	TB5	Rp	w	we	w-we	K	rtg+/-
1	5	GM	Tari Aryan	NOR	2581	7,5	1,0	47,0	51,5	4	6,0	2764	7,5	5,58	1,92	10	19,2
2	11	GM	Alekseenko Kirill	RUS	2563	7,5	0,0	48,0	52,5	4	7,0	2752	7,5	5,51	1,99	10	19,9
3	26	IM	Praggnanandhaa R	IND	2509	7,0	0,5	49,0	52,5	5	5,0	2727	7	4,49	2,51	10	25,1
4	21	IM	Xu Xiangyu	CHN	2543	7,0	0,5	44,5	48,5	4	5,0	2659	7	5,74	1,26	10	12,6
5	30	IM	Lomasov Semen	RUS	2490	6,5	0,0	48,0	52,5	4	4,0	2670	6,5	4,30	2,20	10	22,0
6	1	GM	Van Foreest Jorden	NED	2616	6,5	0,0	44,0	48,5	4	6,0	2599	6,5	6,62	-0,12	10	-1,2
7	16	GM	Petrosyan Manuel	ARM	2554	6,5	0,0	44,0	48,0	5	5,0	2602	6,5	5,92	0,58	10	5,8
8	17	GM	Bai Jinshi	CHN	2553	6,5	0,0	43,5	47,5	4	5,0	2607	6,5	5,85	0,65	10	6,5
9	7	GM	Aravindh Chithambaram Vr.	IND	2572	6,5	0,0	42,5	45,5	4	5,0	2573	6,5	6,36	0,14	10	1,4
10	22	GM	Tran Tuan Minh	VIE	2538	6,5	0,0	41,5	45,0	5	5,0	2592	6,5	5,84	0,66	10	6,6

Round 10 Pairing

Bo.	No.		Name	Rtg	Pts.	Result	Pts.		Name	Rtg	No.
1	5	GM	Tari Aryan	2581	7½		7	IM	Xu Xiangyu	2543	21
2	7	GM	Aravindh Chithambaram Vr.	2572	6½		7½	GM	Alekseenko Kirill	2563	11
3	26	IM	Praggnanandhaa R	2509	7		6½	IM	Lomasov Semen	2490	30
4	22	GM	Tran Tuan Minh	2538	6½		6½	GM	Van Foreest Jorden	2616	1
5	16	GM	Petrosyan Manuel	2554	6½		6½	GM	Bai Jinshi	2553	17
6	2	GM	Oparin Grigoriy	2606	6		6	GM	Moroni Luca Jr	2506	29
7	31	IM	Gholami Aryan	2483	6		6	GM	Svane Rasmus	2587	3
8	6	GM	Karthikeyan Murali	2578	6		6	GM	Salomon Johan	2476	35
9	12	GM	Martirosyan Haik M.	2561	6		6	GM	Gagare Shardul	2482	33
10	32	FM	Sorokin Aleksey	2483	6		6	GM	Vaibhav Suri	2560	13

World Junior Girls

Praggnanandhaa's sister, R Vaishali lost to the Russian WIM Polina Shuvalova in the Girls' section | Photo: Romualdo Vitale

Playing from the white side of the Moscow variation of the Sicilian Defence, R Vaishali came out of the opening with an equal position. In the middle game, she tried generating an attack on the black king but soon lost thread of the position. By the 30th move, she had no attack on the kingside while her opponent had wrecked her queen's wing and was beginning to harvest pawns.

Pune's Akankasha Hagawane defended tenaciously in an endgame with her rook, bishop and one pawn against her opponent, Olga Badelka's queen and two pawns to secure a draw on board 6. | Image: Lakshmi Priya TT

Results of Round 9

Bo.	No.		Name	FED	Rtg	Pts.	Result	Pts.		Name	FED	Rtg	No.
1	1	IM	Abdumalik Zhansaya	KAZ	2428	6½	1 - 0	6	WGM	Tokhirjonova Gulrukhbegim	UZB	2306	16
2	13	FM	Yu Jennifer	USA	2321	6	1 - 0	6½	WGM	Paramzina Anastasya	RUS	2123	44
3	14	WIM	Obolentseva Alexandra	RUS	2320	6	½ - ½	6	IM	Osmak Iulija	UKR	2345	10
4	11	WGM	Tsolakidou Stavroula	GRE	2340	6	1 - 0	5½		Zhu Jiner	CHN	2363	7
5	12	WIM	Vaishali R	IND	2325	5½	0 - 1	5½	WIM	Shuvalova Polina	RUS	2386	5
6	15	WIM	Aakanksha Hagawane	IND	2312	5½	½ - ½	5½	WIM	Badelka Olga	BLR	2374	6
7	22	WIM	Injac Teodora	SRB	2244	5½	0 - 1	5½	IM	Nomin-Erdene Davaademberel	MGL	2358	8
8	49		Nie Xin	CHN	2106	5	0 - 1	5	WFM	Assaubayeva Bibisara	RUS	2395	3
9	4	WGM	Mammadzada Gunay	AZE	2393	5	0 - 1	5	WIM	Uuriintuya Uurtsaikh	MGL	2213	24
10	9	WIM	Khomeriki Nino	GEO	2347	5	½ - ½	5	WFM	Kanakova Natalie	CZE	2134	43