KOZHIKODE, January 23: No 8 seed in both the boys and girls sections, Syed Anwar Shazuli of Tamil Nadu and Ashwini Kulkarni of Maharashtra, started their campaign in the Premier Grip National Junior chess Championships disastrously, losing to unrated opponents in the first round today.Shazuli fell to former Kerala junior champion G Sajesh, who got a Queenside break quite early in the Caro-Kann Defence and kept on improving his position till he pocketed material in the form of pawns. Shazuli resigned after 45 moves.
Ashwini Kulkarni seemed to have got a slight advantage out of the Sicilian Defence against Y Pratibha of Golden Squares Academy, Tamil Nadu. But around the first time control, she got into a mess losing her Queen for a piece, which sealed her fate on move 43.
Apart from these minor upsets and Nisha Mohota's struggling win against unrated Abbha V Thakur of Maharashtra in the girls' section, the first round went along expected lines.
RESULTS (1st round): Boys: Sasikiran (TN) bt Anand
Gupta (HP); Ajay Virawani (MP) lost to R Karthik (TN); Tejas Bakre (IA) bt Manishkumar (Bih); Amit Kumar (Raj) lost to S Kidambi (TN); Manthan Chokshi (Guj) bt K G Apoorva (Kar); B Unnikrishnan (Ker) lost to G Vinod (TN); P Harikrishna (AP) bt Y Nambimol (Mani); Sajesh G (Kerala) bt Syed Anwar Shazuli (TN); Pratamesh Mokal (Mah) bt Sujeesh (Ker); Preetam Sharma (T Nagar) lost to M R Venkatesh (TN) ; S Satyakam (Ori) bt Pradeep Kumar (Ker); Sasikant Kutwal (Mah) bt Bhoopesh Anand (GSCA); Sachin Kumar Jain (UP) lost to Rishipal Singh (AP); C J Aravind (TN) bt U Jaideep (AP); Salil Kumar (Ker) lost to Ramu K (AP).
Girls: Swati Mohota (WB) bt Preeti Bisoi (Ori); Abbha Thakur (Mah) lost to Nisha Mohota (WB) 1; Pallavi Shah (Mah) 1 bt K Girija (Rajasthan); P Vijayalakshmi (AP) lost to Meenakshi S (TN); Chitra Sridhar (Kar) 1 bt Monalisa Malakar (WB); Aravinda Lochanai (AP) lost to P L Sivakami (TN); Ananya Sarkar (GNCA) bt C Matouleibi (Mani); Y Pratibha (TN) bt Ashwini Kulkarni (Mah); Ashwini Puchapurkar
(Mah) bt K Prajeesha (Ker); Umalima Maibem (Mani) lost to Manasi Dadarkar (Mah); S Sujatha (TN) bt P R Rashmi (Kar); M Padma (AP) drew with Baiakhi Das (WB); S Cynthia (TN) bt Irungbam (Mani); Mengki (Mani) bt Nazia Nona (Ker); Sasinas Haritha (Ker) bt K Preethi (T Nagar).
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
