No gold for India in under12 chess

There will be no gold medals from Oropesa for India this year after Saheli Nath was beaten in the crucial, penultimate round of the World Under-12 Girls chess championship.

However, Dronavalli Harika can hope for a silver medal if things go right for her in the last round.

The top board game in the Under-12 girls' section was between two Chinese girls. Shen Yang beat Shuyu Ding to take a clear one point lead over Harika and Ignacz of Hungary.

The best that Harika can do is to tie with Shen Yang if the Chinese falters against top seed Woman International Master Kateryna Lahno of Ukraine in the last round.

Harika has to beat Katherine Pelletier of USA, which may not be difficult.

In the event of a tie for top place, the progressive score would decide. Harika and Shen Yang have the same progressive score, but on breaking the tie further, the Chinese would edge out Harika by a whisker.

Apart from Saheli and Harika, the other Indians to perform creditably are: Dhyani Dave (7 in Under-10 Girls), Sankalp Modwal, Th Gobin Luwang (both Under-10, 6.5 points), Vijay Keerthi and G.Rohit (both U-12, 6.5 points).

In the under-14 girls, Mongolia's Batkhuyag Mongontuul was leading with full score up to the eight round. Then she suffered two defeats in a row and is relegated to sharing the second spot.

However, three other girls have already won the World Championships in their categories. Last year's under-10 girls' champion Tan Zhongyi (China) won the same category again. Shen Yang (China) and Sopio Gvetadze (Geo) are assured of the titles in the under-12 and under-18 categories.

Harika had an easy time with the black pieces against Madona Bokuchava. Bokuchava had probably come prepared for Harika's usual Sicilian Pelikan. When confronted with the French Defence she became a fish out of water. Early in the game she exchanged queens and in the process accepted doubled pawns.

On the 29th move, Bokuchava gifted a pawn to Harika for no obvious reason. Then she had to sacrifice a bishop for a dangerous passed pawn. The game was lost by the 34th move itself but the Georgian kept playing till the 60th move.

Nerves must have got to Saheli Nath. She played the unusual 1 b3 opeing against Hungary's Ignacz and continued to play very much below her normal. She lost control of the centre and got a knight misplaced on h3. A very simple scrutiny would have revealed that her 23rd move was horribly wrong. But she played it and immediately lost a bishop. Shortly thereafter she gave up.

Himanshu Sharma made good his promise of giving a good fight to his Grandmaster opponent. In a game of fluctuating fortunes, he used the Richter-Rauzer attack against the Sicilian Defence of GM Baadur Jobava of Georgia.

The highlight of this game was his knight sacrifice on e6 immediately followed by a bishop sacrifice. For the two pieces Himanshu had four black pawns and a roaring attack.

However, on the 17th turn, Himanshu played a defensive move with his king instead of continuing the attack. This handed over the initiative to the Grandmaster.

But Jobava also did not play precisely and exchanged queens. They reached an exciting ending where Himanshu had the equivalent of four pawns for a bishop and could hope for victory. But he made a careless move which swung the game back in the Grandmaster's favour. And this time his opponent made sure of victory.