Bhakti wins Asian Junior Girls bronze medal!

Goa's Woman FIDE Master Bhakti Kulkarni beat
reigning National Subjunior Champion R. Bharathi
of Tamil Nadu in the last round to win the Asian Junior
Girls Bronze Medal. Former National Junior Girls Champion
Bhakti finished with 7 points from 9 rounds with six wins,
two draws and one loss.

This is her second Asian Medal this year (the first she got
was a Bronze that she won in Teheran in Under 16 Girls)
and her fourth International Medal (she won the World Schools
Under 17 Gold Medal in Singapore and the Team Silver medal
in the World Youth Under 16 Girls Category in Vietnam).
The hardworking and dedicated 16 year old Goan lass,
who studies in Chowgule College, was awarded the medal by
none other than World Champion Viswanathan Anand and this
made the occasion even more memorable for her!

She is gaining 31 Elo rating points from this tournament
alone. Her published rating will be over 2200 which entitles
her to claim the Candidate Master Title. What is remarkable
is that she has bagged the Asian Junior medal with four years
more remaining for her to compete in this category and for
this all the credit should go to her coach Dronacharya awardee
Raghunandan Gokhale who was with her throughout the
event in Chennai and prepared her meticulously for each
adversary.

Monginis Brand Ambassador Bhakti will next play in the
prestigious National Women's 'A' Championship
which is incidentally her first round robin tournament and
begins in New Delhi from the 17th of December.


Final Standings (Boys)
1-2, Ashwin Jayaram, M R Lalith Babu 7.5,
3-4, Bhaskar Adhiban, Vidit Santosh Gujrathi 7.0,
5-6, S. Nitin, P. Shyam Nikhil 6.5(65 players).

FinalStandings (Girls)
1 Mary Ann Gomes 7.5, 2-3, Kruttika Nadig,
Bhakti Kulkarni 7.0, 4-5, Padmini Rout,
P Sivasankari 6.0, 6-9 Shalmali Gagare,
N Raghavi, Kiran Monisha Mohanty,
R Preethi 5.5, 10 R Bharathi 5.0 points (35 players).