Harika Wins!

I love the enthusiasm of the Indian press when its reports on its chessplayers. The type size for the article title was even larger than what I can produce here! From Thaindianews.com Harika wins tie-break, enters pre-quarters of World Chess September 4th, 2008 - 5:07 pm ICT by IANS - Nalchik (Russia), Sep 4 (IANS) India’s Dronavalli Harika, the women’s world junior champion, eliminated Anna Muzychuk of Slovenia in the tie-breaker of the second round to move into the pre-quarter finals of the Women’s World championships here. Harika, who had shared points after the regulation matches, both of which ended in a draw, won with white pieces in the second tie-break game here Wednesday night. Earlier the two drew the first game. The 1.5-0.5 win carried Harika into the third round, which is the pre-quarter finals, where she meets Lilit Mkrtchian of Armenia, rated 2436, as against Harika’s 2461. Harika said that she was very happy to win against Anna Muzychuk, as the Slovenian player was considered a dark horse in the tournament. Also Harika was playing a rapid tie-break at this level for the first time and she felt this would be a good exercise for future challenges. World No. 2 Koneru Humpy, who had a bye in the second round, meets Thanh Trang Hoang of Vietnam (rated 2487) in the third round. On ratings and current form, Humpy, rated at 2622, the highest in this tournament, should win comfortably. If Humpy wins, she will meet the winner of China’s Yang Shen and Russian Nadezhda Kosintseva, who beat Nisha Mohotoa in first round. Defending champion Xu Yuhua has already been knocked out of the tournament. The following are the pre-quarter final pairings: Svetlana Matveeva (Russia) vs. Anna Ushenina (Ukraine); Hoang Than Trang (Hungary) vs. Humpy Koneru (India); Hou Yifan (China) vs. Elena Sedina (Italy); Inna Gaponenkpo (Ukraine) vs. Antoaneta Stefanova (Bulgaria); Pia Cramling (Sweden) vs. Ruan Lufei (China); Harika Dronavali (India) vs. Lilit Mcrtchian (Armenia); Shen Yang (China) vs. Nadezhda Kosintseva (Russia); Alexandra Kosteniuk (Russia) vs. Tatiana Kosintseva (Russia).

Harika Dronavalli Leads World Juniors Girls

Article from Press Trust of India: Harika beats Nakhbayeva, takes sole lead in World Jr Chess From Our Chess Correspondent Gaziantep (Turkey), Aug 9 (PTI) Top seeded International Master India's Dronavalli Harika today scored a clinical victory over Guliskhan Nakhbayeva of Kazakhstan to emerge as the sole leader after the 7th round of ongoing World Junior Girls' Chess Championship here. Playing the white side of a Nimzo Indian defense, Harika attained a slight advantage out of the opening and nurtured her position well enough to knock down one black pawn before tightening the noose. Guliskhan did not have answers of the precise technical display and called it a day when she was about to lose the second pawn too. The victory helped Harika take her tally to 6 points out of a possible 7 and she now enjoys a half point lead over nearest rivals Adriana Nikolova of Bulgaria and Mariya Muzychuk of Ukraine. Amongst the other Indian girls in the fray, only Soumya Swaminathan scored a victory and inched herself up to 5 points at the expense of compatriot Kruttika Nadig. Soumya won with black pieces. Also reaching 5 points with her cool display was R Preethi, who held erstwhile sole leader Tatev Abrahamyan to a draw in a rook and pawns endgame. Top chess femme standings after 7 rounds. USA's Tatev Abrahamyan is in 4th place with 5.0, leading a pack of several chess femmes also with 5.0.

Indians Sweep Zonal Contest

B Shrikant, Hindustan Times Mumbai, September 03, 2007 First Published: 00:54 IST(3/9/2007) Last Updated: 00:56 IST(3/9/2007) Ganguly, Harika qualify for chess World Cup Four-time Indian national champion Surya Sekhar Ganguly and women's defending champion D. Harika won the Asian Zone 3.2 chess championship at Dhaka and earned the right to play in the World Cup to be held in Russia in November this year. Ganguly and Harika won the titles in contrasting styles. Ganguly had to go through a rapid play-off against compatriot G.N. Gopal, winning 2-0 on Saturday, while Harika defeated Swati Ghate of Pune in the 10th round to win by a one-point margin, according to information received here. India swept all the medals in the zonal championship. Gopal, who joined Ganguly at the top with nine points after the 11th round, bagged the second spot. G. Rohit of Andhra Pradesh finished third with eight points, while GM J. Deepan Chakkaravarthy took the fourth place with seven. Gopal, however, had more to cheer as he completed his final GM norm. With 2,480 points, the 17-year-old Gopal from Aluva in Kerala now needs to cross the mark of 2500 to become India's next Grandmaster. Having done well in the last few months, Gopal is expected to achieve the required rating when the ranking list is released in October. In the women's section, Swati Ghate was placed second while National champion Tania Sachdev took the third place with 5.5 points out of a possible 10. Ganguly and Harika thus qualified for the World Cup to be held at Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia from November 23 to December 16. The winner will meet Vladimir Topalov in the World Championship cycle in 2008. GM Ziaur Rahman of Bangladesh has been given a direct seeding to the World Cup by the FIDE President as his nominee.