IIFLW 2018-19 Round 6: Varshney leads in juniors, Tran Tuan Minh and Visakh in GM section

Juniors (under-13):

At the end of the fifth round we had four leaders in the under-13 section - Aaryan Varshney, Kashish Jain, Srihari L.R and Nikhil Maghizan. The game between Srihari and Nikhil ended in a draw. It also seemed like the game between Aaryan and Kashish would end in a draw. After all there were only three pawns on the board with a queen and knight for each side. But then came a moment when Kashish had to make a critical decision.

Kashish Jain vs Aaryan Varshney

You don't want to spoil your structure in the queen endgame, so Qxe3 makes sense. But this is a position which cannot be played just on feel. You have to calculate. Kashish's thinking switched off for a minute, he took on e3 with his queen and Aaryan quickly exchanged the queens and won the resulting pawn endgame, by clamping the queenside with g5-g4.

Standings after round 6:

2100+ GM Section:

GM Tran Tuan Minh's excellent form continues as he beat GM Sandipan Chanda in their top board clash in the above 2100 Elo GM section. Tran Tuan Minh had won the Bhopal GM 2018 and now is in the joint lead at the Mumbai IIFLW 2018-19 with 5.5/6 along with Visakh N.R.

Results of round 6

Standings after round 6