World Youth Chess Championship | Vedant Panesar stuns defending champion Viktor Gazik

10/03/2019

Barring the most expected of results throughout the day, the World Youth Chess Championship saw a brilliant upset as India’s Vedant Panesar got the better of Slovakia’s Viktor Gazik to advance into the next round. In other match, Aditya Sharma defeated Russian Andrey Tsvetkov in the U-14 section.

The initial rounds of the Swiss league format have always been predictable for the second half of the table is pitted against their opposite numbers from the top half. Consequently, the outcomes are mostly known as the favourites are mostly seen warming up for the tighter rounds of the tournament.

The World Youth chess championship didn’t see many anomalies either as the script was diligently followed for most of the six categories. The first big surprise came in the under-18 section, where a not so popular Vedant Panesar bested defending champion and fourth seed Slovakian Viktor Gazik.

The higher seed had been quite uncharacteristically passive in his approach, which led Vedant to exert more pressure and eventually Gazik, rated 327 points higher at 2546, cracked. Apart from Panesar, Aditya Gampa also stunned fourth-seeded Russian Andrey Tsvetkov in 29 moves in the under-14 section.

Praggnanandhaa, another Indian, needed 35 moves to beat Italy’s Massimiliano Botta and the Chennai-lad came up with some brilliant original ideas to claim Botta’s rook for a minor piece, thereby registering a comfortable win.

Leading first-round results: Under-18: Shant Sargsyan (Arm) bt Vladyslav Sydorkyka (Ukr); Massimiliano (Ita) lost to R. Praggnanadhaa; Aryan Gholami bt Vojtech Srameck (Cze); Vedant Panesar bt Viktor Gazik (Svk); P. Iniyan bt Donoso Diaz Sebastian (Chi).

Under-16: Hans Moke Niermann (USA) bt Sai Karthik; Adrian Zetocha drew with Nikolozi Kacharava (Geo); Santiago Avila Pavas (Col) bt Giga Goderdzishvili (Geo); Costamilan Tomiello Mateus (Bra) lost to Mamikon Gharbyan (Arm).

Under-14: M. Sreeshwan bt Aniruddha Potawad; Vinay R. Jumani lost to Volodar Murzin (Rus); Aditya Gampa drew with Andrey Tsvetkov (Rus).

Girls: Under-18: Polina Shuvalova (Rus) bt Kristyna Lauricnova (Cze); Emmanuelle Hng Mei-En (Sgp) drew with Tarmunkh Munkhzul (Mgl); Lara Schulze (Ger) drew with L. Jyotsna; Alicja Sliwicka (Pol) drew with Sanskriti Goyal; Srishti Pandey lost to Vantika Agarwal.

Under-16: Sri Poorna lost to Gohar Beydullayeva (Aze); Mrudul Dehankar bt Kristyna Otrubova (Cze); Raman Meenatchi lost to Nazerke Nurgali (Kaz).

Under-14: Divya Deshmukh bt Fatima Marium; Cancino Patricia Anastas Abdala lost to Rakshitta Ravi; Tanvi Hadkonkar drew with Umida Omonova (Uzb).