Vidit Gujrathi defeated Tomas Laurusas of Lithuania while Sahaj Grover beat Vyacheslav Lozhnikov of Kazakhstan in the second round of the World junior chess championship here.
Gujrathi overpowered Laurusas with the black pieces after a positional exchange sacrifice that netted him a handful of pawns in the endgame.
Grover demolished Lozhnikov in a miniature game out of a closed Sicilian. The Kazakh youngster fell prey to some deft manoeuvres by the former under-10 World champion and his position collapsed with the king stuck in the centre.
Grover won in just 20 moves in under two hours to be in joint lead with 15 others.
At the top, Yu Yangyi of China outplayed India’s S.L. Narayanan, while another Indian GM S.P. Sethuraman was held to a draw by Simone de Filomeno of Italy.
Grandmaster-in-waiting Debashis Das was also held to a draw by England’s Samuel Franklin while N. Srinath opened his account defeating local hopeful Salih Zeydan.
Among other Indians, Sameer Kathmale met his nemesis in Antonios Pavlodis of Greece and Rakesh Kulkarni played out a draw with Kadir Zor Alber of Turkey.
In the girls’ championship being organised simultaneously, Padmini Rout was shocked by lower rated Chinese Xiao Yiyi while Zhai Mo of China accounted for Rucha Pujari. Ivana Furtado also went down to Medina Warda Aulia of Indonesia.
Important results: Second round: Open: Yu Yangyi (Chn, 2) beat S.L. Narayanan (1); Martin Romero Martinez (Col, 1) lost to Alexander Ipatov (Tur, 2); Ali Marandi Cemil Can (Tur, 1.5) drew with Nils Grandelius (Swe, 1.5); Ruslan Kurayan (Ukr, 1) lost to A.R. Salem Saleh (UAE, 2); Tomas Laurusas (Ltu, 1) lost to Vidit Gujrathi (2); S.P. Sethuraman (1.5) drew with Simone De Filomeno (Ita, 1.5); Debashis Das (1.5) drew with Samuel Franklin (Eng, 1.5); Sahaj Grover (2) bt Vyacheslav Lozhnikov (Kaz, 1); Sameer Kathmale (1) lost to Antonios Pavlidis (Gre, 2); N. Srinath (1) bt Salih Zeydan (Tur, 0); Rakesh Kulkarni (0.5) drew with Kadir Zor Alber (Tur, 0.5).
Girls: Alina Kashlinskaya (Rus, 1.5) drew with Lanita Stetsko (Blr, 1.5); Anna Iwanow (Pol, 1.5) drew with Deysi Cori (Per, 1.5); Aleksandra Goryachkina (Rus, 2) bt Altanulzii Enkhtuul (Mgl, 1); Sabina Ibrahimova (Aze, 1.5) drew with Wang Jue (Chn, 1.5); Irina Bulmaga (Rou, 2) bt Anastasiya Rakhmangulova (Ukr, 1); Xiao Yiyi (Chn, 2) bt Padmini Rout (1); Zhai Mo (Chn, 2) bt Rucha Pujari (1); Medina Warda Aulia (Ina, 2) bt Ivana Maria Furtado (1); Anna Styazhkina (Rus, 1.5) drew with J. Saranya (1.5): G.K. Monnisha (1.5) drew with Andrea Paula Rodriguez Rueda (Col, 1.5); Dorsa Derakhshani (Iri, 1) bt S. Anjana Krishna (0); Riya Savant (1) bt Busra Soydan (Tur, 0); Ezgi Adanmis (Tur, 0) lost to Shristi Shetty (1).
