National Juniors 2016: Top seeds suffer as a 1900-player leads!

by Hinduja Reddy - 14/10/2016

The National Junior Championship is in progress in Andhra Pradesh with many of India's strong junior players in attendance. The top four seeds — Md. Nubairshah Shaikh, Praneeth Surya, Ojas Kulkarni, Sayantan Das, all in the 2400 range — are having a terrible tournament, languishing behind their lower rated peers. Vaishali lost early to a much lower rated peer, but then she played in her usual standard. Tactics and more in our illustrated report.

National Juniors 2016: Top seeds suffer as a 1900-player leads!

Rajahmundry is a tranquil city located on the banks of Godavari River. Surrounded by 200 villages, the city has the distinction of being the cultural capital of Andhra Pradesh. It is currently hosting the National Junior (U-19) Open and Girls Chess Championship, 2016.

The top seed is Maharashtra's newly minted international master Md. Nubairshah Shaikh (2418), followed by FM Praneeth Surya (2413) of Telangana, who sensationally qualified for the National Premier last year. Ojas Kulkarni recently broke into the 2400 mark, and IM Sayantan Das is already a veteran of several strong tournaments.

But would they have a successful event? The tournament has seen a succession of surprising leaders, but these higher seeds were none of them!

14-year-old Kumar Gaurav (1926) had lost a hatful of rating before this event. Now he is +197.

Bihar's Kumar Gaurav already has a feather in his cap. He made his maiden IM-norm in Chennai at the beginning of this year. He is leading the National Juniors with 7.5/9.

In contention, pursuing Gaurav is IM Krishna Teja N. (2268) of Andhra Pradesh with 7.0/9.

Shailesh Dravid (2269) of Nagpur is also on 7.0/9, sharing the second spot with Krishna Teja.

Just 11 years of age, Raunak Sadhwani (2174) of Nagpur was in joint lead after eight rounds.

Now he is trailing the leaders by half-a-point. Remarkably, Raunak has already defeated Kumar Gaurav and city-mate Shailesh Dravid!

WFM Tarini Goyal (2202) is playing in the Open. Brave, but she is losing some 66 points already.

WIM Vaishali R (2295) has raced away to 8.0/9 in the girls' section. [Photo: Amruta Mokal]

Vaishali had a slump in the beginning - losing to Sunyuktha CMN (1907) in the third round. After the loss, she scored seven straight wins and is now leading by 1.5 points!

Tact Tricks:

(All positions — White to move)

Pranavananda-Praneeth Surya

Raunak-Bharath

Arpita-Tejaswini

Badrinath-Sai Vishwesh

Related:

Round 10 Pairings:

Open

Bo.	No.		Name	Rtg	Club/City	Pts.	Result	Pts.		Name	Rtg	Club/City	No.
1	10		Shailesh Dravid	2269	Maharashtra	7		7½		Kumar Gaurav	1926	Bihar	42
2	11	IM	Krishna Teja N	2268	Andhra Pradesh	7		7		Sidhant Mohapatra	2286	Odisha	9
3	13		Jayakumaar S	2235	Tamilnadu	6½		6½		Mohammad Nubairshah Shaikh	2418	Maharashtra	1
4	6	CM	Erigaisi Arjun	2307	Telangana	6½		6½		Grahesh Y	1910	Andhra Pradesh	44
5	8		Muthaiah Al	2299	Tamilnadu	6½		6½		Pranavananda V	2199	Andhra Pradesh	17
6	12		Aradhya Garg	2250	Delhi	6½		6½	CM	Sadhwani Raunak	2173	Maharashtra	19
7	5		Sai Vishwesh.C	2308	Tamilnadu	6		6		Baivab Mishra	2059	Odisha	27
8	36		Krishnater Kushager	1972	Maharashtra	6		6	FM	Rajdeep Sarkar	2306	West Bengal	7
9	24		Sai Agni Jeevitesh J	2077	Telangana	6		6		Sankalp Gupta	2204	Maharashtra	15
10	16	WFM	Tarini Goyal	2203	Chandigarh	6		6		Pimpalkhare Vedant	1900	Maharashtra	47

Girls

1	6	WCM	Salonika Saina	2093	Odisha	6½	8	WIM	Vaishali R	2295	Tamilnadu	1
2	4		Priyanka K	2205	Tamilnadu	6½	6½	WFM	Arpita Mukherjee	2040	West Bengal	8
3	11	WFM	Bidhar Rutumbara	1911	Odisha	6½	6	WIM	Chitlange Sakshi	2205	Maharashtra	3
4	18		Meghna C H	1794	Kerala	6	6	WIM	Tejaswini Sagar	2256	Gujarat	2
5	19		Potluri Saye Srreezza	1789	Telangana	6	6	WFM	Lasya.G	2106	Andhra Pradesh	5
6	21		Aasha C R	1777	Tamilnadu	6	6		Sunyuktha C M N	1907	Tamilnadu	12
7	25		Priyamvada Karamcheti	1756	Andhra Pradesh	6	6	WCM	Isha Sharma	1886	Karnataka	15
8	17		Jishitha D	1884	Andhra Pradesh	6	6		Deodhar Vrushali Umesh	1699	Maharashtra	29
9	9	WCM	Chandreyee Hajra	2027	West Bengal	5½	5½		Harshita Guddanti	2077	Andhra Pradesh	7