U-11 age group Chess: U-10 World Champion Priyanka Nuttakki loses to Samriddhaa Ghosh

In a major upset, top seed and world Under-10 champion Priyanka Nuttakki of Andhra Pradesh suffered a shock defeat at the hands of seventh seed Samriddhaa Ghosh of West Bengal in the fourth round of the National Under-11 Girls’ Chess Championship in New Delhi.

Samriddhaa was a class act at Ludlow Castle Sports Complex today with her black pieces, against Priyanka in a queen pawn open game, as she put enormous pressure on the King side of her top seed rival in the middle game to post an emphatic victory in 44 moves.

Samriddhaa, along with second seed Vantika Agrawal of Delhi, C Lakshmi of Tamil Nadu, Odisha duo Anwesha Mishra and Salonika Saina, now share the lead with four points in the girl`s category.

Vantika showed her end game supremacy to overpower teammate Palkin Kaur while Lakshmi got better off Sanskriti Goyal of Uttar Pradesh in the fourth round encounter. Anwesha and Salonika beat Pracheta Agarwal of Jharkhand and Anannya Menkudle of Maharashtra respectively to join the leaders pack.

Meanwhile in the open section, which is being held simultaneously, Kerala lad Nihal Sarin held second seed Saurabh Anand of Bihar to a creditable draw in a Slav Defence game which lasted 70 moves.

Top seed and world Under-10 bronze medalist Ram Aravind of Tamil Nadu faced a tough fight from his Maharashtra rival Bhavik Bharambe in Ruy Lopez game, but managed to garner full points after 70 moves to take the joint lead along with team mate R. Prajesh, Sankarsha Shelke of Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh duo Rahul Srivatshav and Erigaisi Arjun. — PTI