Harikrishna, Aarthie confident

India's youngest ever Grandmaster Pendyala Harikrishna is optimistic about a good showing in the World Chess Championship, beginning in Moscow on November 27.

"I am preparing hard for the last one month and confident of defeating Slovanian Beliavsky in the first round," he declared on the eve of his departure for the big event.

Former under-18 World champion and International Woman Master Aarthie Ramaswami, who too will board the flight with Harikrishna, also expressed confidence of doing well in the rournament. "I'll try my best and do well," she said.

Flanked by renowned International Grandmaster Yevgeny Vladimorov of Kazakhstan, the two stars were replying to questions at a send-off function, organised by their sponsors, Wipro, in Madras on Friday. Both will leave for Delhi later on Friday to join the Indian contingent.

The Indian challenge in the World Championship is being spearheaded by none other than Vishwanathan Anand. The nine-member Indian team (five men and four women) will leave for Moscow on Sunday morning.

The 15-year-old Harikrishna, who won the Commonwealth title in August, said, ''I have been preparing in Bangalore for the last one month, and generally about how to tackle Beliavsky in the first round.

"I am concentrating on the opening and end game. Coach Vladimirov was very helpful to me in identifying my weakness and strong points very well.''

About his first round match with Beliavskay, since the World Championship is played on a knock-out basis, Harikrishna said, 'I will try to defeat him. But I can't say about the outcome of the match now."

Wipro, which had been sponsoring both Harikrishna and Aarthie since early 2000, had arranged an exclusive training camp for both players under Vladimirov. Prior to every tournament, the company had flown down Vladimirov to Bangalore to work on improving their games.

Interestingly, Vladimirov will accompany Harikrishna and Aarthie to the championships.

''I am thankful to Wipro for arranging the exclusive coaching camps with Vladimirov. It has helped me to recognise my flaws and improve my game,'' Harikrishna said.

Aarthie, who is focussing more on her opening game, will meet Nino Khruteszi of Georgia in the first round.

Replying to questions, she said, ''If you play without any inhibition, you can produce results."

To another question, the 20-year-old from Madras said women too have chances. ''The input is the same. Only the output is different. The only thing is that you have to come out of the mental block,'' she added.

Asked about the level of preparation of both players, Vladimirov said, ''We can make only general and basic preparations. It is confined only to first round matches since you do not know who will be your second round opponent.''

Earlier, Harikrishna and Aarthie played a simultaneous game with the top six under-12 players of Tamil Nadu for three hours. For the enthusiatic bunch of future chess hopefuls it was a wonderful experience, more so with getting valuable tips from Vladimirov.

Vladimirov pointed out the mistakes made by the young players during the game and offered some valuable tips which should go a long way in improving their game.

"It is important that young players get a chance to play more games,'' he said, and complemented the efforts of Wipro for arranging the simultaneous match.

The Indian contingent:
Men: Vishwanathan Anand, K.Sasikiran, P Harikrishna, Dibyendu Barua.
Women: Pallavi Shah, S Vijayalakshmi, Aarthie Ramaswami and Nisha Mohota.