International Master S L Narayanan went down fighting against third seed Wei Yi of China but remained in the hunt for his Grandmaster norm after the end of the eighth round of World Junior Chess Championship here today.
The Indian challenge in the championships suffered a serious setback following Narayanan's loss. The Indian was unbeaten till the seventh round and will now have to stage a comeback to pose a challenge.
The norm chances however remained for Narayanan despite the loss and depending upon the opposition, a draw might still be enough in the next round to secure the Grandmaster norm.
Wei Yi was at his best and played out a solid positional game as white to reach 6.5 points. The Chinese went for the topical Advance variation in the Caro Kann defense and after attaining the spatial advantage went about his task of exerting pressure on both flanks.
Narayanan lost a pawn while dealing with the crisis and the resulting rook and minor piece endgame was handled in copy-book fashion by the Chinese.
With three leaders in front International Master Diptayan Ghosh jumped to fourth spot after beating Kriebel Tadeas of Czech Republic. The Indian has elite company on six points led by top seed Vladimir Fedoseev, Mikhail Antipov, both from Russia along with Jorge Cori and Bai Jinshi of China.
Apart from Diptayan's hard-earned victory, highest-rated Indian Vidit Gujrathi brought some cheers for the home crowd by scoring a comeback victory over Matej Blazeka of Croatia. Gujrathi showed his class in a one-sided affair ending the game with a fine tactical stroke after getting an advantageous position out of a queen pawn game as white.
While Gujrathi moved to five points, Aravindh Chithambaram, N Srinath and Prasanna Rao are among those who have 5.5 points apiece. With five rounds still to come, things are only going to heat up in every round.
In the girls' section being played simultaneously, India's best hope Padmini Rout also lost to defending champion Aleksandra Goryachkina of Russia on the top board. It was a strange move order by Rout as black in the Dutch defence probably to confuse her opponent but as things moved forward the Russian girl seemed more in control of the situation.
It was on the 25th move that Rout made the decisive error leading to damage on the king side and nine moves later it was all over.
Goryachkina remained in joint lead alongside Ann Chumpitaz of Peru and Anna Iwanow of Poland on 6.5 points apiece. Rout fell behind in rankings and remained on 5.5 points and it's hard work again for Rout here in the remaining five rounds.
