Harikrishna, Aarthi get top billing

By Raghunandan Gokhale

MUMBAI, AUG. 29. International Master 14-year old P. Harikrishna of India is the top seed in the Asian Junior chess championship to be held at Hotel Avion here from Wednesday. World under-18 champion R. Aarthi is the top seed in the girls section ahead of Koneru Humpy, Nisha Mohota and Swati Ghate.

Harikrishna (2500 Elo) does not have to look far for competitors. IM Surya Sekhar Ganguly (Elo 2498) is breathing down his neck. IM Neelotpal Das and IM Sunderrajan Kidambi are the others in the 2400 club. IM Tejas Bakre who won the Asian sub- junior title at the same venue in 1998, could also prove to be a tough customer.

Chess superpowers China, Philippines and Uzbekistan have surprisingly fielded unrated players. One would have expected China to field their newest Grandmaster Bu Xianzhi who surpassed Fisher, Polgar, Bacrot etc., to become the youngest Grandmaster in the history at the age of 13. However, China's unrated entrant, Du Shan, might prove to be the dark horse.

The Uzbeks too have fielded an unrated player, 14-year-old Anton Filippov.

Two Indian boys - C.J. Arvind and Valay Parikh - have been showing a lot of promise recently and have entered the field as Donors entries. Arvind won the International Rating tournament at Chennai last week ahead of IM Sudhakar Babu, IWM Saheli Barua, FM K.V. Shantaram among others. Valay Parikh has won the National under-18 championship. Mahesh Chandran did well on his Europe tour and could be a threat to the front runners.

All eyes on Humpy

Though the girls section has stars like IWM R. Aarthi (World under-18 champion), IWM Nisha Mohota (National jr champion), IWM Swati Ghate (former Olympiad member), the entry of 14-year-old Koneru Humpy has added a flavour of mystery to the field. The World under-10 and u-12 champion will be the player to watch.

On paper the Indian line-up in the girls section is very impressive. The top six seeds are from India as the Chinese, Kazaks, Vietnamese and the Filipinos have enter unrated players.

S. Meenakshi, the current Indian woman runner-up will have a golden opportunity to prove herself in this championship. Both the sections will be played on Swiss system in 11 rounds to enable the players to get the norms of IM and IWM. Five Indians - IM V. Ravikumar, GM Anand, IM Tejas Bakre, GM Abhijit Kunte, GM K. Sasikiran - IWMs Anupama Abhyankar-Gokhale and Saheli Dhar- Barua have won this championship in the boys and girls sections, respectively, in the past.

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