International Master S L Narayanan needs just a draw against China’s Wei Yi in the eighth round to secure a Grandmaster norm in the World Junior Chess Championship now underway in Pune.
After winning the national junior championship some time back, Narayanan had announced his arrival in the Indian chess scene and the youngster has lived up to expectations in the premier event for junior players here.
Having beaten the likes of Vladislav Kovalev of Belarus and Kamil Dragun of Poland earlier in the tournament, Narayanan currently shares the second spot in the championship on 5.5 points and will look forward to his Grandmaster norm first before going further.
While Narayanan has been the best player among Indians thus far, the Grandmaster trio of Vidit Gujrathi, Sahaj Grover and Ankit Rajpara have not quite posed the challenge they were expected to do.
Grover and Rajpara have 4.5 points each while Gujrathi is only on four points despite starting as the highest rated Indian and the defending bronze medallist.
Sahaj Grover was doing well until the last round when disaster struck and he handed the game in a platter to Karen Grigoryan of Armenia. There was certain exhaustion visible in Grover’s game and the rest day should help him recover soon.
With six rounds still to come, a lot can happen and can change as has been the case in many of the championships before but Jorge Cori of Peru has no complaints past the half way mark as he is leading on six points.
With Cori in front, Narayanan is sharing the second spot with Wei Yi, Lu Shanglei of China and Karen Grigoryan.
Grandmaster in waiting Arvindh Chathambaram is among those who have five points each.
In the girls’ championship, being organised simultaneously, Padimini Rout meets her toughest opponent after the lone rest day in defending champion Aleksandra Goryachkina of Russia.
Rout has been at her best in the event so far and a good result int he next round can propel her to go for the gold which has thus far eluded the Indian girl. Rout had won gold medal in Olympiad for her individual performance two months back.
