World Juniors R3+4: Harsha Bharathakoti's magnificient day!

by Sagar Shah - 08/09/2018

India has a strong contingent at the World Junior 2018. We have four GMs representing our country - GM Karthikeyan Murali, Aravindh Chithambaram, Karthik Venkatraman and Abhimanyu Puranik. However, the star of the tournament so far has been IM Harsha Bharathakoti who has scored four points in four rounds and is clearly on track to achieving his GM title. Harsha already has three GM norms already and now needs just 10 Elo points to become 56th GM of India. On the third day of the World Juniors, which was a double round day, Harsha showed some high class chess to beat to strong GMs - Alan Pichot and S.L. Narayanan. In this report we have both the games lightly annotated as well as an interview with Harsha. You will also find the link to follow the live games, along with live commentary, where Harsha takes on Maghsoodloo in round five.

Harsha Bharathakoti is just 10 Elo points away from becoming India's 56th GM

Indian players in a light mood before the start of the fourth round

Harsha Bharathakoti started the tournament with a rating of 2474 and three GM norms. He has already gained 16 Elo points and is on 2490, just 10 points away from GM title.

Harsha Bharathakoti vs Alan Pichot

Harsha was under grave time pressure, but he managed to keep his cool and came out on top by making some amazingly accurate moves towards the end.

Harsha speaks to ChessBase India after his victory

S.L. Narayanan vs Harsha Bharathakoti

In the second round of the day S.L. Narayanan was in an agressive mood. He sacrificed quite a bit of material and the game was quite interesting. But after a point he blundered and Harsha took home the full point.

Karthikeyan and Karthik played in the third round against each other and drew their game

The 12-year-old Uzbek wunderboy Javokhir Sindarov managed to beat Aravindh Chithambaram

Overview of Indian performance:

SNo		Name	Rtg	FED	1	2	3	4	Pts.	Rk.	K	rtg+/-	Group
4	GM	Karthikeyan Murali	2605	IND	1	1	½	½	3,0	14	10	2,10	Open
10	GM	Aravindh Chithambaram Vr.	2578	IND	1	1	1	0	3,0	9	10	2,40	Open
13	GM	Sunilduth Lyna Narayanan	2573	IND	1	½	1	0	2,5	38	10	-3,90	Open
23	GM	Puranik Abhimanyu	2524	IND	1	½	1	1	3,5	8	10	5,80	Open
27	IM	Karthik Venkataraman	2519	IND	1	1	½	½	3,0	18	10	6,90	Open
40	IM	Harsha Bharathakoti	2474	IND	1	1	1	1	4,0	4	10	15,60	Open
50	IM	Mohammad Nubairshah Shaikh	2443	IND	½	1	½	0	2,0	72	10	-2,80	Open
56	IM	Raja Harshit	2419	IND	1	0	½	1	2,5	57	10	-0,10	Open
77	IM	Krishna Teja N	2356	IND	1	0	0	1	2,0	89	10	-8,60	Open
94	FM	Shailesh Dravid	2325	IND	0	1	1	0	2,0	85	20	-2,40	Open
12	WIM	Chitlange Sakshi	2279	IND	1	½	½	½	2,5	26	40	-14,40	Girls
21	WIM	Mahalakshmi M	2213	IND	½	1	½	1	3,0	20	20	0,00	Girls
32	WIM	Varshini V	2173	IND	1	0	1	½	2,5	28	20	-6,40	Girls
36	WIM	Ivana Maria Furtado	2144	IND	1	½	1	0	2,5	22	20	14,60	Girls
55	WCM	Isha Sharma	2012	IND	1	0	½	0	1,5	60	40	28,80	Girls
65		Meenal Gupta	1963	IND	½	0	1	1	2,5	33	40	42,00	Girls

Follow the round 5 games live

Round five is in progress and you can follow it live!

Live commentary by Turkish Chess Federation

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