Young Anjana shocks WFM Rucha in 2nd round
LUCKNOW: There were some anxious moments for top ranked and Women FIDE Master Rucha Pujari of Maharashtra on the second day of the Junior National Chess Championship here on Friday.
Even though she had a comfortable win in the third round late in the evening, former national school champion S Anjana Krishna of Kerala in the second round handed her a shocking defeat on Friday morning.
Despite playing with her favourite black pieces experienced Pujari, who had seventh place finish at the Asian Championship i n April at Sharjah, failed to overpower her rival and conceded a vital point in the Sicilian Defence game after 67th move.
Undoubtedly, it was a complicated game in the Rs 2 lakh championship, and both were neck-n-neck till the middle game. But after the 40th move, Anjana started troubling Pujari, who had no other option but to surrender before her rival after 67th move. Besides Pujari, all other ranked players had a smooth sailing in the second round. Runners up at the Asian Championship and WFM J Saranya of Tamil Nadu collected full one point against her state mate Se Priya Meenu, where as another WFM M Mahalaxmi also from TN beat M Sandya. WFM GK Monnisha didn’t take much time in wresting the tie against Nandkumar Akshaya, where another WFM from Tamil Nadu Seshadri Srija split points with Orissa’s Smaraki Mohanty by playing a draw.
In the boys section, the only International Master in the fray Prasanna Raghuram Rao of Maharashtra defeated Darpan Inani of Gujarat.
FIDE masters Sayantan Das of West Bengal, Vr Aravindh Chithambaram of Tamil Nadu and Harshal Shahi of Delhi also scored full points in the second round.
The day also witnessed some good results for the hosts players as Ayush Panday beat Dheeraj Sharma from Himachal Pradesh, Atul Kumar defeated state mate Asif Hussain Akhtar, Radika Garg beat Chhatri Indu from Madhya Pradesh, Sanskrity Goyal beat Mukesh Kumar Parul from Himachal Pradesh.