Western Asian R07+08: The unstoppable Mrudul juggernaut crashes through

by Satanick Mukhuty - 10/09/2019

Mrudul Dehankar kept up her sensational run in the ongoing Western Asian Youth and Junior Championships 2019. In rounds seven and eight she registered back to back victories against Srimathi R and Samriddhaa Ghosh to maintain her full point lead over the rest of the under-18 girls field with a fabulous score of 7.5/8. Thus, Mrudul needs only a draw in the final round to become the sole winner of the event. In under-20 open, Abdimalik Abdisalimov of Uzbekistan has taken sole lead with 7.0/8 but is closely followed by Rajdeep Sarkar who has 6.5/8; while in the girls section of the same age group Vantika Agrawal has been narrowly overtaken by Sakshi Chitlange and Bakhora Abdusattorova both of whom now share 6.5/8 each.

Mrudul Dehankar dominates under-18 girls!

Mrudul Dehankar has been paired up against Rindhiya V in the final round and she only needs a draw to clinch the under-18 girls title! | Photo: Gopakumar Sudhakaran

Apart from drawing against Jyothsna L. in the fifth round, Mrudul Dehankar has so far won seven out of her eight games. In the last two rounds victory came against Srimathi R and National under-17 champion Samriddhaa Ghosh.

Mrudul (left) in action against Srimathi R in round seven | Photo: Gopakumar Sudhakaran

Mrudul had the white pieces against Srimathi and she employed her pet Trompowsky attack after a queen's pawn opening. The former was probably not prepared in this line as she chose a rather unusual and perhaps even dubious 3...b6 variation.

Mrudul Dehankar - Srimathi R, Round 7

There are only eight games with 3...b6 in the online database, all of which resulting in win for White.

With 12.Qe2 itself Mrudul's position started to look convincing. White was prepared to castle long and lash out with h2-h4 on the kingside, while Black was still lagging behind in development.

Mrudul actually missed her way at one point and ended up giving away most of her advantage, yet her opponent couldn't make good use of the opportunity and crumbled in just 37 moves.

Mrudul had the black pieces against Samriddha Ghosh in round eight. The game started off with an English and the position was roughly equal throughout until the latter blundered.

Samriddhaa Ghosh - Mrudul Dehankar, Round 8

The position was perfectly balanced upto this point. A move like 22.Qf3 aiming for further simplification would have been fine but Samriddhaa went pawn grabbing with 22.Qxc7 ... Can you find how Mrudul took advantage of this?

Standings in under-18 girls after penultimate round

Rk.	SNo		Name	sex	FED	Rtg	Pts.	TB1	TB2	TB3	TB4	TB5	w-we
1	1	WCM	Mrudul Dehankar	w	IND	2198	7,5	0,0	7	34,0	37,0	34,25	1,14
2	2		Priyanka K	w	IND	2169	6,5	0,0	6	35,5	38,5	28,25	0,03
3	4	WCM	Jyothsna L	w	IND	1989	5,5	0,0	3	35,5	39,5	25,75	0,74
4	6		Pandey Srishti	w	IND	1928	5,0	0,0	4	34,5	36,0	18,00	0,61
5	8		Toshali V	w	IND	1823	5,0	0,0	4	34,0	35,5	16,75	1,23
6	12		Rindhiya V	w	IND	1753	4,5	0,0	4	32,0	34,0	15,50	1,17
7	13		Shriya R Revankar	w	IND	1751	4,5	0,0	3	28,0	30,5	15,25	0,61
8	15		Mudaliar Nandini	w	IND	1518	4,5	0,0	2	26,5	28,5	13,50	1,23
9	7		Ghosh Samriddhaa	w	IND	1863	4,0	0,0	3	34,5	36,5	13,00	0,10
10	3	WFM	Sanskriti Goyal	w	IND	2030	4,0	0,0	3	33,5	35,5	13,75	-1,45

Srijit topples Thilakarathne to take sole lead

After losing to Srijit Paul in the penultimate round Thilakarathne G M H of Sri Lanka has slipped to the third place on the leaderboard. He has 5.5/8 points along with Mohamed Anees M and Abdurakhmonov Mukhammadali | Photo: Gopakumar Sudhakaran

Standings in under-18 open after penultimate round

Rk.	SNo		Name	Typ	sex	FED	Rtg	Pts.	TB1	TB2	TB3	TB4	TB5	w-we
1	2		Srijit Paul	U18		IND	2310	6,5	0,0	6	36,0	40,5	32,50	0,53
2	6	FM	Abdilkhair Abilmansur	U16		KAZ	2189	6,0	0,0	5	33,0	36,5	27,00	0,32
3	1	FM	Thilakarathne G M H	U18		SRI	2397	5,5	0,0	5	36,0	39,5	26,00	-1,20
4	14		Mohamed Anees M	U16		IND	2038	5,5	0,0	5	35,0	38,0	24,50	1,88
5	3	FM	Abdurakhmonov Mukhammadali	U18		UZB	2288	5,5	0,0	5	31,5	34,5	22,50	-1,10
6	9	FM	Vatsal Singhania	U18		IND	2159	5,0	0,0	4	36,0	39,5	22,75	0,27
7	12		Harisurya Bharadwaj Gundepudi	U18		IND	2043	5,0	0,0	4	31,0	34,0	20,25	-0,19
8	24		Esshan Wadhawan	U16		IND	1903	5,0	0,0	4	31,0	34,0	18,50	1,68
9	19		Gaurav Rajesh Zagade	U18		IND	2012	5,0	0,0	4	30,5	33,0	18,00	0,82
10	5	FM	Ajay Karthikeyan	U16		IND	2206	5,0	0,0	3	34,5	38,0	22,25	0,12

Under-20 girls: Sakshi in joint lead,Vantika just half a point behind

Sakshi Chitlange won both her games in rounds seven and eight to join Bakhora Abdusattorova on the lead with 6.5/8 points | Photo: Gopakumar Sudhakaran

Vantika had to be contented with double draws in the last two rounds. Hence, she has slipped behind the leaders with 6.0/8 points | Photo: Gopakumar Sudhakaran

Standings in under-20 girls after penultimate round

Rk.	SNo		Name	sex	FED	Rtg	Pts.	TB1	TB2	TB3	TB4	TB5	w-we
1	5	WIM	Abdusattorova Bakhora	w	UZB	2109	6,5	1,0	6	35,0	39,0	30,50	1,21
2	4	WIM	Chitlange Sakshi	w	IND	2159	6,5	0,0	6	34,5	38,0	29,00	0,90
3	1	WIM	Vantika Agrawal	w	IND	2304	6,0	0,0	5	34,0	36,5	25,50	-0,61
4	13		Shah Vishwa	w	IND	1760	5,0	0,0	4	35,5	38,5	20,75	3,07
5	9		Bakshi Rutuja	w	IND	2002	5,0	0,0	3	34,0	36,5	19,50	1,65
6	17		Senthamizh Yazhini S	w	IND	1626	4,5	0,0	4	30,0	32,0	14,00	2,16
7	6	WFM	Savitha Shri B	w	IND	2076	4,5	0,0	4	27,5	29,0	15,00	-1,96
8	2	WIM	Aakanksha Hagawane	w	IND	2232	4,5	0,0	3	34,5	37,0	17,00	-2,15
9	7	WFM	Jain Nityata	w	IND	2069	4,5	0,0	3	28,0	30,5	15,75	-1,55
10	8	WFM	Bommini Mounika Akshaya	w	IND	2055	4,0	1,5	3	32,5	34,5	14,50	-1,27

Under-20 open: Can Rajdeep Sarkar catch up with the leader?

Rajdeep Sarkar (left) beat Pranav Anand (right) in the seventh round and drew Leon Mendonca in the eighth. He is just half a point behind the leader Abdimalik Abdisalimov with 6.5/8 | Photo: Gopakumar Sudhakaran

Leon Mendonca has 5.5/8 points along with Divya Deshmukh and Harshal Shahi | Photo: Gopakumar Sudhakaran

Divya Deshmukh suffered her first defeat of the event in round eight against Abdimalik Abdisalimov | Photo: Gopakumar Sudhakaran

In round 7 however Divya registered a fine victory against Sammed Jaykumar Shette. The latter had the black pieces and opted for the Dutch Leningrad against 1.d4

Divya Deshmukh - Sammed Jaykumar Shette, Round 7

Position after 27...Bc8: Black could have chosen a more active continuation with 27...Qf6 instead. This allowed White to win a clear pawn with advantage.

The final blunder came only one move later with 28...Rd2 - once again 28...Qf6 would have been better - can you finish off Black from here like Divya did? Check the game below for answer.

Standings in under-20 open after penultimate round

Rk.	SNo		Name	sex	FED	Rtg	Pts.	TB1	TB2	TB3	TB4	TB5	w-we
1	2	FM	Abdisalimov Abdimalik		UZB	2409	7,0	0,0	6	37,0	41,0	35,50	1,57
2	7	FM	Rajdeep Sarkar		IND	2364	6,5	0,0	5	36,0	39,5	31,00	1,79
3	19	FM	Harshal Shahi		IND	2114	5,5	0,0	5	35,0	37,0	22,25	2,78
4	5	IM	Mendonca Leon Luke		IND	2385	5,5	0,0	4	35,5	39,0	24,00	-0,20
5	8	WIM	Divya Deshmukh	w	IND	2362	5,5	0,0	4	34,5	37,5	24,75	0,10
6	3		Sammed Jaykumar Shete		IND	2395	5,0	0,0	4	36,0	40,0	23,25	-0,31
7	15		Saurabh Anand		IND	2216	5,0	0,0	4	34,0	37,0	20,50	1,10
8	9	FM	Pranav Anand		IND	2361	5,0	0,0	4	33,5	37,5	21,75	0,00
9	6		Sankalp Gupta		IND	2376	5,0	0,0	4	31,5	34,5	19,25	-1,15
10	17		Aradhya Garg		IND	2157	5,0	0,0	3	33,0	36,0	21,25	2,24

Check complete results of all categories here.

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