Harika, Eesha and Rohit ahead

OROPESA (SPAIN), OCT. 24. Indian prodigies, D. Harika (under-12 girls), Eesha Karavade (under-14 girls) and G. Rohit (under-12 boys) were leading after the third round of the World Youth chess festival here on Wednesday. The trio has bagged the full three points with eight more rounds to go.

Eesha Karavade played a brilliant miniature against Kazakhstan's Nadiya Tashimova. Tashimova played the Sicilian Scheveningen, but as the game unfolded she did not seem to be too familiar with her chosen system.

She played `Rfd8' instead of the theoretical `Rfe8'. Karavade's attack started on the 15th move when she thrust her `E'-pawn forward. Five moves later she made a brilliant move with her `F'- pawn and on the 22nd move, Tashimova resigned.

Last year's silver medallist in the under-10, Harika played the Grunfeld defence against Gabriele Saulyte of Lithuania. Early in the game, Harika offered her `E5' pawn which her opponent gleefully took. However, when Harika cleverly avoided a pin along the `D-file' and attacked both of white's knights, the Lithuanian got confused.

She gave up one knight for a pawn. After that there was no fight left in white and Harika won on the 41st move without any trouble.

Last year's world under-12 champion, Deep Sengupta came from behind to win against Slovenia's Luka Lenic. Lenic held the upperhand against his French defence with two bishops in an open position against two knights.

Sengupta fought back and reduced white's initiative by exchanging off queens. The position still spelt danger for the Indian in the ending.

With clever play Sengupta reduced it to a knight versus bishop ending with three pawns each. Black's knight and king effectively blocked any entry by the white king into midboard.

Meanwhile, Sengupta forced the white pawns to be fixed on black squares as the white bishop was also running along black squares. In despair Lenic cut short his misery by blundering away a pawn and resigned on the 62nd move.

G. Rohit jumped into joint lead in the under-12 boys by winning against Moldavia's victor Agafii. With the Benko gambit he got vague pressure along the `a-file'.

On the 21st move he surprised his opponent by capturing a protected pawn with his rook. Fearing a complete invasion of his territory after black was on the rampage, he won two knights for a rook and gradually reached an ending where his knights dominated the rooks. White's king and rook were helpless in the face of black's knights constantly making forking threats and Agafii gave up on the 77th move.

The Indian under-18 champion, Himanshu Sharma beat Craig Hanley of England in a curious game. Himanshu with white played e4e6, d4d5. On the fourth move black castled on the queen- side where Himanshu carried out a successful pawn-storm. He offered his rook on `E5' to wrap up the game.

- PTI

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