After round three in World Junior Championship, GM Amin Bassem, GM
Eltaj Safarli and Tornike Sanikidze lead after winning against GM
Parimarjan Negi, Martyn Kravtsiv, Dzhurabek Khamrakulov respectively ,
the only players to remain at perfect score.
In Girls' championship, IM Harika Dronavalli, WGM Mariya Muzychuk, WIM Tatev Abrahamyan are leading with perfect score.
Detailed reports with pictures and brief notes below.
Bassem, Popov and Safarli leads after Round Three
Amin Bassem, aiming to keep the championship title at home after Ahmed Adly's triumph last year
Ivan Popov, who was the runner-up last year, fine adjusting his army before the game
The first board encounter between Ivan Popov and Chao Li ended as a
quick draw probably due to exhaustion since playing two rounds a day
with such a strong opposition should not be that easy despite very
entertaining to watch. Especially when there is nothing particular to
fight for after the opening. Nguyen and Hoyos tried for a longer time
but neither side managed to change the balance. In a complicated
position, Perimarjan Negi blundered a pawn and lost against Egyptian
Amin Bassem who is among the leaders with perfect score.
One of the exciting struggles of the third round with an interesting and complicated rook endgame
A complicated but balanced fight most of the time between Arik Braun
and David Howell was among the most exciting games of the round. Both
sides tested each other and looked for advantage. In the rook endgame in the position you see above, white might have more winning chances if f3 was played compared to the text (f4 was played)
since the activation of black king as in the game led to a quick draw, however,
after f3 with the idea of both keeping the black king from activation as occurred in the game and attacking the c4 pawn with the king via f2 and e3, during that time black could also activate the king and then free the rook from keeping a constant eye on the c pawn but probably the players might have thought of something against f3, too.
Quick post mortem about the interesting endgame between David Howell and Arik Braun
Hmm.. I am not sure...
Good game and good luck !
Ante Brkic facing the child prodigy Yifan Hou
Ante Brkic and Yifan Hou made a quiet draw in 27 moves. In the game
between Kravtsiv and Safarli as you can see from the diagram on the
left, white had to be content with Na3 which would still give black a
slight advantage due to the strong knight on d4 and better coordination
of black pieces, however white took the knight on looking strategically
logical but tactically failing. After 18.Nd4 ed4 19.Rd4 Nf5, black wins
an exchange.
Leon Hoyos deeply meditating before his game...
...against Nguyen
Namig Ismailov talking to his compatriot Eltaj Safarli before the game
Tyler Hughes of US, checking the picture his coach Armen Ambartsomian before the game
Towards the end of the round, Laznicka close to the victory
A nice finish in the third round came by Sanan Sjugirov against Turkish player Fethi Apaydın.
29...Rf3! since white cannot take the rook due to the forthcoming mate
but after 30.Qh4 Raf8 white has to resign because mate cannot be
avoided.
Pascua Haridas from Philippines
Orkhan Abdoulov from Azerbaijan
Denis Rombaldoni from Italy
World Junior Girls Championship Round Three: Three Leaders, Muzychuk and Harika Meets
WIM Harika and WIM Padmini
Dronavalli Harika faced Rout Padmini , her younger compatriot who won
the silver medal in 2008 Asian Junior Championship. In the English
Opening white gained two minor piece against rook and one pawn but the
game was more or less balanced until in the minor piece endgame black
erred at some point and enabled white to obtain activate two passed
pawns while blocking black's bishop with the help of her own pawn on
e4. Then the knight maneuver decided the game since the g pawn cannot
be controlled by any of black pieces. An exciting endgame but a
dramatic finish for Padmini meaning Harika keeps her perfect score and
will face WGM Muzychuk , the second seed after her after Muzychuk's
quick victory against Pertlova.
Spectators around the game between Harika and Padmini
WGM Mariya Muzychuk in action
Majdan had the upper hand despite the advanced white pawns against Isgandarova of Azerbaijan and was already an exchange up in the final position but instead of giving returning the exchange with 42...Rgf6, chose to repeat the moves and concede a draw.
It was not a good game for Betül Cemre Yıldız of Turkey who quickly lost against Tatev Abrahamyan, after emerging in a worse position after the opening and not being able to show resistance. Bad loss for the home side enabling the American player to continue the perfect score and share the lead. Davletova and Leks drawn their games after a balanced struggle.
Kübra Öztürk faced Miranda Mikadze
The game between WFM Öztürk and WIM Mikadze ended as a draw but despite
white's slightly risky play which enabled both sides to reach 2.5
points. Kruttika Nadig won swiftly against the third-seed Katerina
Nemcova in the Italian. Mary Ann Gomes defeated Nazi Paikidze in game
which the diagram (right) occurred and the Asian Junior Champion played
18.Nb7 Qb7 19.Ng5 where black replied Qg2 but after a Rybka's Bd3 black
could have won an exchange without any sufficient compensation on
white's part.
Saray Hagarty from England
Guliskan Nakhbayeva of Kazakhstan
We kindly thank to arbiter Andreas Kantonakis for lending us his "silent" camera which enabled us to take picture during in the latter parts of the game.
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