Padmini Rout wins Bronze at World Jr Chess C'ship

Woman Grandmaster Padmini Rout was the lone Indian to sign off with a medal when she notched up the bronze after drawing her 13th and final round game with Deysi Cori of Peru in the World Junior Girls' Chess Championship in Chotowa-Czarna, Poland.

Scoring 10 points, Padmini, who still has a few years left to play in the world juniors, had beaten Alisa Melekhina of the US in the penultimate round.

The gold medal was won by top seed and hot favourite Anna Muzychuk of Slovenia, who scored another fine victory at the expense of Ekaterini Pavlidou of Greece.

Anna scored a whopping 11 points in all and finished half a point clear of Olga Girya of Russia who was held to a draw by Irina Andrenko of Ukraine.

In the open championship being played simultaneously, Dmitry Andreikin of Russia won the gold medal ahead of compatriot Sanan Sjugirov.

Settling for draws in contrasting fashion in the final round, both Andreikin and Sanan finished with an identical score of 10 points out of a possible 13 but the tie-break of the former was alway superior.

The bronze medal went to Darius Sweircz of Poland who had the best tie-break score among four nine pointers. Indian hope Parimarjan Negi finished the tournament with a draw against Maxim Matlakov of Russia.

Negi finished 11th in the tournament after scoring 8.5 points in all and was the best Indian performer.

Among other Indians in the fray, S P Sethuraman finished 32nd on 7.5 points while Swapnil Dhopade was a few places behind on the same score. Debashish Das, Anwesh Upadhyaya and Sagar Shah ended the event on seven points each while M R Lalith Babu, AR Arun Karthik and Ashwin Jayaram had an identical 6.5 points each.

Among the other Indian girls, Bhakti Kulkarni did well to finish fifth on nine points while B Pratuyusha ended on 6.5 points in all.

Important and Indian results final round (Indians unless specified):

Boys: Jon Ludvig Hammer (Nor, 9) drew with Dmitry Andreikin (Rus, 10); A R Saleh Salem (Uae,8.5) drew with Sanan Sjugirov (Rus, 10); Maxim Matlakov (Rus, 9) drew with Parimarjan Negi (8.5); S P Sethuraman (7.5) lost to Kirill Stupak (Blr, 8.5); Kanmazalp, Ogulcan (Tur, 7.5) beat M R Lalith Babu (6.5);  Sagar Shah (7) lost to Vugar Ural Rasulov (Aze, 7.5); Swapnil Dhopade (7.5) beat Ulvi Bajarani (Aze, 6.5); Ashwin Jayaran (6.5) drew with Kamil Dragun (6.5); Anwesh Upadhyaya (7) beat Toms Kantans (Lat, 6); Matas Narmontas (Ltu, 6) lost to Debashish Das (7); Daniel Howard Fernandez (Sin, 6.5) drew with R Arun Karthik (6.5).

Girls: Anna Muzychuk (Slo, 11) beat Ekaterini Pavlidou (Gre, 8); Olga Girya (Rus, 10.5) drew with Irina Andrenko (Ukr, 8.5); Deysi Cori (Per, 8.5) drew with Padmini Rout (10); Nafisa Muminova (Uzb, 9) drew with Sopiko Guramishvili (Geo, 8.5); Katarzyna Adamowicz (Pol, 7.5) lost to Bhakti Kulkarni (9); B Pratyusha (6.5) beat Spela Orehek (Slo, 5.5).

Round 12: Andreikin drew with Matlakov; Sjugirov beat Erik Blomqvist (Swe); Negi beat Tello Jorge Moises Cori (Per);  Bajarani lost to Sethuraman; Marcin Sieciechowicz (Pol) lost to Shah; Jan-Krzysztof Duda (Pol) drew with Dhopade; Lalith Babu beat Martin Pagerka (Svk); Karthik drew with Upadhyaya; Das drew with Radoslav Dimitrov (Bul).

Girls round 12: Deysi Cori beat Anna Muzychuk; Sopiko Guramishvili lost to Olga Girya; Padminibeat Alisa Melekhina (Usa); Melanie Ohme (Ger) lost to Nafisa Muminova; Bhakti Kulkarni beat Nastassia Ziaziulkina (Blr); Anna Iwanow (Pol) beat B Pratyusha.