Close finish on cards at Asian Youth Chess

New Delhi: Tamil Nadu teenager Shayam Nikil beat Turkmenistan`s Atabayev Yusup in a marathon sixth-round match to keep the Indian hopes of a gold medal alive at the Asian Youth Chess Championship, which is heading for a close finish.

In the Under-18 Open section, Nikil displayed sheer class to beat Yusup in a match that lasted 116 moves in the sixth round. Meanwhile, top seed Grandmaster Salem A R Saleh of UAE settled for a draw after 93 moves against Iranian Porramezanali Amirreza. Shyam and Salem are now leading the table in this section with five points closely followed by Debashish Das with a drift of half point.In the girls section, Bhakti Kulkarni and Nakhbayeva Guliskhan of Kazakhstan are leading the table with five points. In the girls Under-8 Category, four Indian girls; Arpita Mukherjee, Khushi Dharewa, Tarini Goyal and Nithya Pallempati are occupying the pole position with 4.5 points. Bureau Report