Kajah National Sub Junior Boys & Girls Super League 2003, Calicut

Indian Tournaments 2003

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Kajah National Sub Junior Boys & Girls Super League 2003, Calicut

Arun Prasad & Mary Ann Gomes emerge Champions

T Abhay, Rajadarshini and N Raghavi of Tamil Nadu joined Arun Prasad (TN) and Mary Ann Gomes (Goodricke) in the Indian team for the Youth Chess Olympiad, to be held in July 2004. Prasad and Gomes made sure of places in the team after emerging champions in the National Sub-junior Super League championship in the penultimate round on Tuesday.

Top seed Arun Prasad took the title with a draw against state mate T U Navin Kanna to take his tally to 8.5 points, while G N Gopal (Kerala), Rahul Sangma (Goodricke) and Vijay Keerthi (Karnataka) all finished with 6.5 points each to take the next three spots.

The truce between Gopal and T Abhay proved crucial for the latter to garner six points and join the top five in the team for the Olympiad.

For Rahul, who was among the frontline leaders during the early part of the tournament, the final round turned out to be a nightmare when he lost to Sriram Sarja of Karnataka.

Pursuing a no-defeat record successfully, top seed Mary Ann Gomes of the Goodricke National Chess Academy, Kolkata, lifted the girls title with a round to spare.

Soumya Swaminathan (Maha) and P Sivasankari (TN) who split points among themselves, finished with 8.5 and eight points to take the second and third spots respectively and ensure a national berth along with Gomes for the Youth Olympiad.

Earlier, Mary Ann Gomes drew with Rajadarshini (TN) to complete the proceedings without a loss and tally 10.5 points. She was followed by Soumya Swaminathan (Maharashtra), who beat S Harini (TN) in a Sicilian defence involving 58 moves to finish a point behind the leader.

Besides P Sivasankari, who had a bye today but still a good eight points, Rajadarshini and Raghavi collected seven points each to finish among the top five.

However, Kiran Monisha Mohanty (Orissa), who beat Meenu Rajendran (Kerala) to tally seven points, was pushed back to sixth position on the Koya's system of the tie-break, therby losing a fine opportunity to qualify for the Olympiad.

Final Round Results (Boys)

G N Gopal (Ker) 6.5 drew with T Abhay (TN) 6, Nikhilesh Kumar (AP) 5.5 lost to Praveen Prasad (AP) 5.5, Pratik Shriwas (Mah) 5.5 bt Vijay Keerthi (Kar) 6.5, Arun Prasad (TN) 8.5 drew with Navi Kanna (TN) 2.5, Sriram Sarja (Kar) 5.5 bt Rahul Sangma (Goodricke) 6.5, Vishal V Shah (Mah) 3.5 lost to P Karthikeyan (TN) 3.

Final Round Results (Girls)

S Harini (TN) 4.5 lost to Soumya Swaminathan (Mah) 9.5, Mary Ann Gomes (WB) 10.5 drew with Rajadarshini (TN) 7, G Pratika (Kar) 2 drew with V K Sindhu (TN) 5.5, J Rajasurya (TN) 6 drew with N Raghavi (TN) 7, Anjana N Sowjanya (TN) 2.5 lost to N Krithikha (TN) 4, Kiran Monisha Mohanty (Ori) 7 bt Meenu Rajendran (Ker) 4.5, P Sivasankari (TN) 8 BYE.

(Agencies)