Armenia's Karen Grigoryan stunned sole leader Jorge Cori of Peru while Lu Shanglei of China defeated higher-rated Benjamin Bok of The Netherlands to emerge joint leaders with 6.5 points each after the eighth round of the World Junior Chess Championships in Pune on Tuesday.
India's Vidit Gujrathi was one of the early finishers, scoring a 34 move victory over Matej Blazeka of Croatia.
Five more rounds remain in the championships.
Meanwhile, in the girls section, top seed Aleksandra Goryachkina of Russia spoilt India's Padmini Rout's unbeaten run. Goryachkina wasn't the only Russian to come out victorious in the girls section. Daria Pustovoitova also beat Anna Iwanow of Poland. The Russian duo, along with Peru's Anna Iwanow, are joint leaders with with 6.5 points each. Sarasadat Khademalsharieh is trailing the leader by half a point while Rout remains on 5.5 points.
It was not a fruitful day for India with Ivana Maria Furtado losing to Iran's Sarasadat Khademalsharieh. Rucha Pujari, Shweta Gole. Sakshi Chitalange, Sahej Grover, Shardul Gagare also lost their respective matches.
Rout mishandled the stonewall variation of the Dutch Defence against Goryachkina and the Russian's rooks, queen and knight were soon threatening a major offensive on the King-side, right from the early middle-game stages. Rout's queen and rook were almost out of play, stranded on the queenside and her castle was broken. A wrong central pawn push on the 25th turn by Rout suddenly opened up the gates towards her King and Goryachkina crashed through to pocket the point after 34 moves.
Important results (8th round, Indians unless specified):
Open section: K Grigoryan (ARM, 6.5) bt J Cori (PER, 5.5); L Shanglei (CHN, 6.5) bt B Bok (NED, 5.5); Q Ducarmon (NED, 5) lost to V Fedoseev (RUS, 6); A Chithambaram (5.5) drew G Oparin (RUS, 5.5); M Antipov (Rus, 6) bt A Mhamal (5); A Indjic (SRB, 5) drew L Johanson (SWE, 5); S Gagare (4.5) lost to K Dragun (Pol, 5.5); B Csonka (Hun, 5) drew A Rajpara (5); V Gujrathi (5) bt M Blazeka (CRO, 4)
Girls section: A Goryachkina (RSU, 6.5) bt P Rout (5.5); D Pustovoitova (RUS, 6.5) bt A Iwanow (Pol, 5.5); M Brunello (ITA, 5) lost to A Chumpitaz (PER, 5.5); S Khademalsharieh (IRI, 6) bt IM Furtado (5); S Ibrahimova (AZE, 5.5) bt R Pujari (4.5); MF Janelle (PHI, 5.5) bt S Gole (4.5); M Arabidze (GEO, 5) bt S Chitlange (5); P Bodda (5) bt M Zarkovic (CRO, 4)
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