Padmini Rout scored an impressive victory over Ioana Gelip of Romania with plenty of fireworks in the sixth round of the LIC World Junior Girls Chess championship here Saturday.
Padmini sacrificed her queen to unveil a spectacular checkmate against Gelip to join leader Daria Pustovoita of Russia with five points.
However, the joy in the Indian camp was short lived as within minutes of this result, Viddit Santosh Gujrathi, India's best bet for the title, was shocked by Aryan Tari of Norway in the Open section.
Meanwhile, S.L. Narayanan continued to impress, drawing with top seed Vladimir Fedoseev of Russia after a marathon fight lasting 76 moves and take his tally to five points.
N. Srinath too continued the good work and held higher rated Duda Jan Krzysztof of Poland while Sahej Grover also showed plenty of defensive skills to hold third seed Wei Yi of China.
Gelip opted for the French Defence and despite castling early was hampered by development problems. Padmini did not take time off to castle but instead focused on launching a major attack on the King-side even as her opponent tried to work her way around the queen-side.
Strangely Gelip tried to gobble up all the pawns that Padmini gave up in her quest for attack and her knight, bishop and rook on the queen-side could never get into the game.
On the 27th move, Padmini offered to sacrifice her queen that her opponent declined as it would lead to a checkmate.
Padmini spent plenty of time in the mid-game stages and virtually was living on borrowed time (30 seconds increment per move) and had to make around 10 moves in less than a minute.
The Romanian, however, lost way and accepted Padmini's queen after a while only to be checkmated by a couple of rooks and bishop on the 38th turn.
Vidit appeared to be going fine against Aryan Tari of Norway but in all probability overlooked a checkmating trap with the rook and queen and lost out after 45 moves.
Important results (Indians unless specified):
Open: Vladimir Fedosev (Rus) 4.5 drew S L Narayanan 5; Yi Wei (Chn) 4.5 drew Sahaj Grover 4.5; Vidit Santosh Gujrathi 3.5 lost to Aryan Tari (Nor) 4.5; Duda Jan Krrzysztof (Pol) 4 drew N Srinath 4.
Girls: Sabina Ibrahimova (Aze) 4.5 drew Aleksandra Goryachkina (Rus) 4.5; Sarasadat Khademaisharieh (Iri) 4.5 drew Ann Chumpitaz (Per) 4.5; Daria Pustovoitova 5 bt (Rus) Ivana Maria Furtado 4 ; Padmini Rout bt Ioana Gelip (Rou); R Vaishali 3.5 lost to Anna Iwanow (Pol) 4.5; Monisha G K 4 drew Marina Brunello (Ita) 4; Mae Frayna Janelle (Phi) 4.5 bt J Saranya 3.5; Pratyusha Bodda 4 bt Meri Arabidze (Geo) 3; Nguyen Thi Mai Hubg (Vie) 4 bt Vantika Agarwal 3.
