Harika notches 1 more win

Gaziantep (Turkey), Aug 11: Top seed and International Master Dronavalli Harika defeated Adriana Nikolova of Bulgaria in the eighth round of the World Junior girls’ chess championship here on Monday. The victory helped Harika retain her slender half-point lead over Mariya Muzychuk of Ukraine who got the better of Kubra Ozturk of Turkey. With Harika on 7 points out of a possible 8, Muzychuk is on 6.5 while Guliskhan Nakhbayeva of Kazakhstan, Miranda Mikadze of Gerogia and Soumya Swaminathan now share the third spot on 6 points each. In the ninth round Harika will take on Soumya, who went for the kill against Tatev Abrahamyan of United States and was duly rewarded when the latter failed to cope with building pressure. It was another Sicilian of the day that reached an endgame and Soumya was victorious after 42 moves. Amongst... [read full story]