Indian successes at World Juniors

India, the country of world champion Viswanathan Anand, can look forward to a bright chess future. Yesterday Abhijeet Gupta won the World Junior Chess Championship held in Gaziantep, Turkey. Harika Dronavalli clinched the title at the Girls section.

Report, photos thanks to ?É‚Äìzg?ɬºr Akman

The World Junior Championship was held August 2-16 in the Turkish city of Gaziantep, located close to the Syrian border.





This year's World Junior Championship 2008 had a dramatic finish. Before the last round, David Howell from England and Abhijeet Gupta and Parimarjan Negi from India were sharing the lead with 9.0 out of 12, followed by Eltaj Safarli (Azerbaijan) and Arik Braun (Germany).

Gupta defeated Howell to win the World Junior Championship title, because Negi drew his game against Arik Braun, and Safarli did the same against Maxim Rodshtein (Israel). Negi won the silver medal by 9.5 points and third place was shared by Arik Braun, David Howell, Eltaj Safarli, Hou Yifan (yes, sucessfully playing among the boys) and Bassem Amin.

The deciding game the World Junior Championship was between David Howell and Abijeet Gupta, where Black equalized effortlessly in a d3 Italian. When White decided to advance the pawns in front of his king too much, it proved too dangerous. Black punished this excessively risky strategy by opening up the f-file and using it as a gateway to reach the opponent's king. This gateway brought not only the victory, but the World Junior title as well. Below you'll find all of Gupta's games for replay.



[TABLE=351]

The World Junior Girls Championship was a less dramatic affair: during the tournament top seed Harika Dronavalli was simply confirmed her strength in Gaziantep. After the penultimate round there was a full point gap with her closest rival and a last-round draw against Katerina Nemcova secured the title with a score 10.5 out of 13.

Nazi Paikidze won against Mariya Muzychuk to join her at second place, as Mary Ann Gomes won against Miranda Mikadze and K?ɬºbra ?É‚Äìzt?ɬºrk won against Soumya Swaminathan to do the same. They finished with 9 points out of 13.

Below you'll find Harika's round 1-12 games for replay.



[TABLE=352]

Gupta Abhijeet

Harika Dronavalli

1-2-3: Gupta, Negi, Braun

1-2-3-4-5: Harika, Muzychuk, Ozturk, Gomes, Paikidze

Links:

• Official website
• World Junior Games in PGN and World Junior Girls Games in PGN