Chess: Negi held by Stupak in World Junior C`ship

Chotowa-Czarna: World`s second youngest Grandmaster Parimarjan Negi was again held for a draw by Kirill Stupak of Belarus in the seventh round of world junior chess championship here. Playing white, Negi decided against taking any undue risk and it was a fairly quick draw that left the Indian on five points out of a possible seven. In the girls` champion being held simultaneously, Padmini Rout lost to top seed Anna Muzychuk of Slovenia. Padmini, who was sharing the lead with Anna, slipped to joint third spot in the current standings and will have to work harder in the last six rounds to remain in the hunt for a medal.Parimarjan slipped to joint fourth as top seed Dmitry Andreikin defeated overnight joint leader Dariusz Swiercz of Poland. The Russian emerged as the new sole leader in this section with six points out of a possible seven and is a half point clear of Sanan Sugirov of Russia and Jacek Tomczak of Poland. Negi is in the next group of five pointers and the next Indian in contention is M R Lalith Babu who has 4.5 points in his kitty after a debacle against Jacek Tomczak. It remains to be seen how the premier junior events of the world will shape up but Negi certainly has a lot of catching up to do as he is full point behind the leader. The seventh round was in fact not good for the Indians in the open section as none was able to win the game. The best results were draws obtained by Ashwin Jayaram, Sagar Shah, Anwesh Upadhyaya and Debashish Das while S P Sethuraman and Arun Karthik were amongst those who lost their games.Amongst the girls` Bhakti Kulkarni brought some cheers to an otherwise gloomy Indian camp by defeating Veronika Exler of Austria in a complicated game. Negi played the white side of a French defense and faced a variation that is known to give white some advantage. However, Stupak was quite up to the task as he launched is counter play in time and Negi decided to accept the draw proposal. Lalith Babu was outplayed by Tomczak from a Nimzo Indian defense game where the Indian played black. An army of white pieces invaded his territory and there was no escape when Babu called it a day in 29 moves. Padmini fought hard in an English opening game but made a judgement error while allowing white a dangerous passed pawn. It proved enough for Anna to get the full point. PTI