Post News Network
Bhubaneswar, August 10: Saina Salonika of Orissa won a silver medal in the blitz category, but ended the standard category in fifth place finish in the Asian Youth Chess Championships which concluded Monday at Suwon. In the U-10 open category, Mahitosh Dey bagged a bronze medal scoring six points out of a possible nine. In his last match Mahitosh defeated Enkh Oden Khabaatar of Mongolia.
In her favourite blitz category, Saina bagged 5.5 points out of a possible seven to finish runners-up with a win against Abduali Samal of Kazakhstan in the seventh round.
Vaibhav Mishra disappointed to finish seventh with four points as he lost his seventh and final round match against Khodashenas Mersad of Ireland in the U-18 open category.
Smaraki Mohanty finished 11th with three points in her kitty in the U-18 girls’ category. She played out a drab draw against Dao Thi lan Anh of Vietnam in the seventh round.
Contrasting fortunes
Debashis Das and Padmini Rout had contrasting fortunes in the eighth and the penultimate round of the Asian Continental Chess Championships at Al Ain, Monday.
In the open section, Debashis beat Mamyrbay Assad of Kazakhstan and maintained his joint fourth place with five points. However, Padmini went down to Lie Tiengie of China to slip to joint fifth position with 4.5 points.
AR Salem Saleh stunned second seed Nguyen Ngoc Troung Son of Vietnam to jump to sole lead on 6.5 points out of a possible eight. Grandmaster Abhijeet Gupta played a quick draw with Surya Shekhar Ganguly and these two now share the second spot on six points along with Vidit Gujrathi, who accounted for Deep Sengupta in a tight match.
