Harikrishna held, but stays ahead

Grandmaster P Harikrishna settled for a draw with his opponent but continued to lead with eight points after completion of ten rounds in the World Junior Chess Championship at Kochi on Friday.

In the tenth round, IM Quezada Perez Yunieski of Cuba and Harikrishna settled for a draw in Ruy Lopez classical variation in 25 moves while on board two, China's junior national champion Zhao Jun held GM Yuri Drozdovsky of Ukraine to a draw in French Winawer variation in 34 moves.

Meanwhile, 16-year old Deep Sengupta shocked third seed Russian GM Evgeny Alekseev in 45 moves, to move to 7.5 points. The win helped Sengupta move on to the second spot with Zhao Jun.

Sengupta, a former world under-12 champion, had upset top seed GM Ferenc Berkes of Hungary in the ninth round yesterday.

Seventh seed GM Timur Gareyev of Uzbekistan held fourth seed GM Tigran Petrosian of Armenia to a draw in a Queens Gambit exchange variation in 43 moves.

Koneru Humpy, the lone girl playing in the boys section, drew with compatriot Arghyadip Das in 70 moves while her teammate Sai Srinivas lost to GM Jan Smeets of The Netherlands.

Deepan Chakravarthy had to be satisfied with a draw against Artem IIjin of Russia.

In the Girls' Under-20 Championship, top seed Ekaterina Korbut of Russia and second seed Elisabeth Paehtz of Germany with eight points each are jointly leading the table after ten rounds.

Nineteen-year old Elisabeth Paehtz defeated Tania Sachdev, while on top board WGM Ekaterina Korbut beat Eesha Karavade in 38 moves.

WGM Anna Ushenina of Ukraine, who had shared the lead with Korbut and Paehtz in the ninth round, drew with Vinuthna in the tenth round. Ushenina with 7.5 points now lies in the second spot.

Fourteen-year old Saheli Nath, national sub-junior champion, lost to Joanna Majdan of Poland in 51 moves and WFM Perez R Jennifer of Cuba defeated J E Kavitha in 78 moves.

Other winners include Zhang Jilin (China), WFM  Alina Motoc (Romania), WFM Siti Zulaikha (Malaysia), Marties Bensdorp (The Netherlands), Jorunn Brekke (Norway), Lucie Hodova (Czech), C Delphin, P Sivasankari and Iswarya Shobana (India).