AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

NT Bureau
Chennai, Oct 9:

        On a day of big battles in the ninth round of the Canara Bank National Sub-Junior Boys and Girls Chess Championships, S P Sethuraman of Tamilnadu increased his lead to one point and A Niji of Kerala took sole lead for the first time.

        Sethuraman is now on eight points, one point ahead of his closest rivals B Adhiban, Ramnath Bhuvanesh (both TN) and Antonio D' Cunha of Karnataka.

        In the girls section, Niji is on 7.5 and is leading R Bharathi (TN) and Shalmali Gagare (Mah) by half a point. On the boys' top board, the Madurai youngster K Priyadarshan gambited a pawn on the third move of a Modern Defence. Sethuraman used that pawn to get a bishop and won the game without much trouble.

        On the girls top board, Pon N Krithika of Tamilnadu was defeated by Statemate R Bharathi in 50 moves of an eventful game. Pon who has exhibited dubious form in the previous games, crashed to a defeat with poor play. Bharathi played well and seized the many chances that Pon offered.

        Important results (round nine) — Boys: S P Sethuraman (TN) 8 beat K Priyadharshan (TN) 6.5; Swayams Mishra (Ori) 6 lost to B Adhiban (TN) 7; N Surendran (TN) 6.5 drew with M R Lalith Babu (AP) 6.5; S Nitin (TN) 6 lost to R Bhuvanesh (TN) 7; M Shyam Sundar (TN) 6.5 drew with Anurag Mhamal (Goa) 6.5; Antonio Viani D'Cunha (Kar) 7 beat Praveen Kumar (Bhr) 6; G A Stany (Kar) 6 drew with Prasanna Rao (Mah) 6.5;

        Aditya Udeshi (Mah) 6.5 beat Abhratanu Dutta (WB) 5.5.

        Satyajit Kundu (WB) 6 drew with Bitan Banerjee (WB) 6; Gaurav Kumar (Bhr) 6 drew with Ankit R Rajpara (Guj) 6; Sandipan Chatterjee (WB) 6 drew with Fenil Shah (Guj) 6; Girish A Koushik (Kar) 5.5 lost to M Hariharasudan (TN) 6.5; D S Shashaank (TN) 5.5 lost to S Tejas Chandra (AP) 6; Debashis Das (Ori) 5.5 drew with M Muthu Alagappan (TN) 5.5; Dipantu Das (WB) 5.5 drew with Biswajit Nayak (Ori) 5.5.

        Girls: Pon N Krithika (TN) 6.5 lost to R Bharathi (TN) 7; M Jagadambal (TN) 6.5 drew with Shalmali Gagare (Mah) 7; Shristi J Shetty (Kar) 5.5 lost to A Niji (Ker) 7.5; Devangi Patankar (Mah) 6.5 drew with Pallabi Roy (WB) 6.5; N L V Anusha (AP) 5.5 lost to M Kushboo (TN) 6.5;J Mohana Priya (TN) 6.5 beat Mohana Sengupta (WB) 5.5; A Akshaya (TN) 5.5 lost to Pratyusha Bodda (AP) 6.5.

        Shaati Majumder (WB) 5.5 drew with Sukanya Dutta (WB) 5.5; J G Nivedhitha (TN) 5 lost to K S Nirupama (AP) 6; V Sree Lakshmi (AP) 5.5 drew with R Visalatchi (TN) 5.5; J Vaishnavi (TN) 6 beat J Saranya (TN) 5;

        C P Aatirah (Ker) 6 beat J Sahari (AP); S V Sathya Priya (TN) 6 beat B Taraswiniee (Pon) 5; C H Savetha (TN) 4.5 lost to S Anjana Krishna (Ker) 5.5; S Sowjhanya (TN) 5 drew with Sonakshi Rathore (Raj) 5.