World Junior Chess Championship: Grover, Gujrathi settle for a draw

Pune: Indian Grandmasters Sahaj Grover and Vidit Gujrathi played out an exciting draw as five players shared the joint lead at the end of the third round of the ongoing World Junior Chess Championship. It was a head-on match between two Indian stars and the game witnessed forgotten preparation, fierce tactics and some incredible defense before the players decided to shake hands. With 10 rounds still to come in the premier event for players under-20, Chinese duo of Wei Yi and Lu Shanglei, Jorge Cori of Peru, Vladislav Kovalev of Belarus and former under-18 world champion Idani Pouya of Iran share the lead with a perfect score of three points. [caption id=“attachment_1749053” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Reuters[/caption] Not far behind are Grover and Gujrathi, who inched themselves up to 2.5 points to join the next group of players which also include the third Indian GM Ankit Rajpara and S L Narayanan apart from many others. The reigning under-10 world champion Nihal Sarin continued with his good form as he drew with Csonka Balazs of Hungary for another excellent result. In the girls’ section being played simultaneously, India’s best bet Padmini Rout was held to a draw by compatriot Ivana Maria Furtado. Ivanna played a solid game with white pieces and there was little that Padmini could do despite trying. Russian Daria Pustovoitova on three points is the sole leader in this section. Padmini is in joint third spot on 2.5 points. Grover and Gujrathi played one of the best games in the day although there were mistakes from both sides. Grover went for an ultra-sharp setup against the Sicilian Taimanov and the opening seemed to be working in his favour when on the tenth move he forgot his home-analysis and played a hand-move. It was only seven moves later that Grover realised he was a move less and now was already the time for corrective measures. However, Gujrathi got the upper hand with some fine counter play and was close to getting a clear advantage when a tactical stroke forced him to go back on defence as the complications were hard to calculate. The game was drawn in 40 moves. One Indian, who could have been in the leading pack is Rajpara who mishandled a clear better position against Arat Ufuk Sezen of Turkey. The Indian seemed to be on track with an extra piece in the endgame but Sezen came up with some remarkable defence to force the draw. PTI