World Junior Chess: Praggnanandhaa cruises to enthralling win, shares lead

Praggnanandhaa joined Ukraine's Evgeny Shtembuliak and Spain's Ruiz Miguel Santos in the lead at 3.5 points from four rounds.

Published : Oct 17, 2019 22:12 IST , New Delhi

R. Praggnanandhaa ended Dambasuren Batsuren's resistance in 44 moves. Photo: CHESSBASE INDIA
R. Praggnanandhaa ended Dambasuren Batsuren's resistance in 44 moves. Photo: CHESSBASE INDIA
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R. Praggnanandhaa ended Dambasuren Batsuren's resistance in 44 moves. Photo: CHESSBASE INDIA

R. Praggnanandhaa never ceases to surprise. The ease with which this 14-year-old sacrifices his rooks for bishops, like he did during his wins in the second and fourth rounds of World junior chess championship, underline his deep reading of the given positions.

After surprisingly held by England’s Ravi Haria in the morning round, Praggnanandhaa unleashed a rare twin rook-sacrifice before putting the finishing touches with his queen and bishop-pair to end Mongolian Dambasuren Batsuren's resistance in 44 moves.

With seven of the top eight boards ending in draws, Praggnanandhaa joined Ukraine's Evgeny Shtembuliak and Spain's Ruiz Miguel Santos in the lead at 3.5 points from four rounds.

In fact, the double-round day saw the stronger players recover in varying degrees from the setbacks of the last two days.

There was also an unusual ‘walkover’ from the 11th seeded Iranian Aaryan Gholami when pitted against Israel’s Alexander Zlatin in the fourth round. Since there have been many occasions in chess a contest between players of these two countries have remained non-starters, Gholami took nothing to chance and even produced a medical certificate to prove his ‘indisposition’.

Among the girls, Arpita Mukherjee blew away a golden chance to win and take the lead against teammate N. Priyanka but settled for a draw. Earlier, Mongolian Boldbaatar Altantuya tok the lead with four straight wins.

Victorious Rakshitta Ravi (3.5) moved to the joint second place while Praggnanandhaa’s sister R. Vaishali (3), seeded five, was held by Russian Elizaveta Solozhenkina. Vantika Agarwal and Divya Deshpande drew, as did Mrudul Dehankar to reach three points.

 

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