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World Juniors R3+4: Harsha Bharathakoti's magnificient day!

by Sagar Shah - 08/09/2018

India has a strong contingent at the World Junior 2018. We have four GMs representing our country - GM Karthikeyan Murali, Aravindh Chithambaram, Karthik Venkatraman and Abhimanyu Puranik. However, the star of the tournament so far has been IM Harsha Bharathakoti who has scored four points in four rounds and is clearly on track to achieving his GM title. Harsha already has three GM norms already and now needs just 10 Elo points to become 56th GM of India. On the third day of the World Juniors, which was a double round day, Harsha showed some high class chess to beat to strong GMs - Alan Pichot and S.L. Narayanan. In this report we have both the games lightly annotated as well as an interview with Harsha. You will also find the link to follow the live games, along with live commentary, where Harsha takes on Maghsoodloo in round five.

Harsha Bharathakoti is just 10 Elo points away from becoming India's 56th GM

Indian players in a light mood before the start of the fourth round

Harsha Bharathakoti started the tournament with a rating of 2474 and three GM norms. He has already gained 16 Elo points and is on 2490, just 10 points away from GM title.

Harsha Bharathakoti vs Alan Pichot

Harsha was under grave time pressure, but he managed to keep his cool and came out on top by making some amazingly accurate moves towards the end.

Harsha speaks to ChessBase India after his victory

S.L. Narayanan vs Harsha Bharathakoti

In the second round of the day S.L. Narayanan was in an agressive mood. He sacrificed quite a bit of material and the game was quite interesting. But after a point he blundered and Harsha took home the full point.

Karthikeyan and Karthik played in the third round against each other and drew their game

The 12-year-old Uzbek wunderboy Javokhir Sindarov managed to beat Aravindh Chithambaram

Overview of Indian performance:

SNoNameRtgFED1234Pts.Rk.Krtg+/-Group
4GMKarthikeyan Murali2605IND11½½3,014102,10Open
10GMAravindh Chithambaram Vr.2578IND11103,09102,40Open
13GMSunilduth Lyna Narayanan2573IND1½102,53810-3,90Open
23GMPuranik Abhimanyu2524IND1½113,58105,80Open
27IMKarthik Venkataraman2519IND11½½3,018106,90Open
40IMHarsha Bharathakoti2474IND11114,041015,60Open
50IMMohammad Nubairshah Shaikh2443IND½1½02,07210-2,80Open
56IMRaja Harshit2419IND10½12,55710-0,10Open
77IMKrishna Teja N2356IND10012,08910-8,60Open
94FMShailesh Dravid2325IND01102,08520-2,40Open
12WIMChitlange Sakshi2279IND1½½½2,52640-14,40Girls
21WIMMahalakshmi M2213IND½1½13,020200,00Girls
32WIMVarshini V2173IND101½2,52820-6,40Girls
36WIMIvana Maria Furtado2144IND1½102,5222014,60Girls
55WCMIsha Sharma2012IND10½01,5604028,80Girls
65Meenal Gupta1963IND½0112,5334042,00Girls

 

Follow the round 5 games live

Round five is in progress and you can follow it live!
Live commentary by Turkish Chess Federation