The Russian hegemony, the former Soviet hegemony rather, in chess is still a reality and cannot be questioned overnight. Even in World junior champion Darmen Sadvakasov's chess character, a touch of the Soviet or Russian identity could be spotted as Kazakhstan has still the same system in operation, though with lesser degree of intensity.

˛There was no dispute as to who was the Player of the tournament this time. No drama, like in the 1993 edition when Miladinovic turned the tables in his favour in the last round. Sadvakasov was playing in a different league of competition altogetherand his level of play never dropped in the event at all.

˛``I think he was playing at 2,600-strength already,'' felt Bolat Asanov his GM trainer. Many of the competitors nodded in agreement. It is not surprising to see the world junior champion touching a 2,600-grade as they are supposed to be Super GMs and even world championship contenders, but in recent chess history, very few of them reached the elite club and stayed there consistently.

˛In general, India's Krishnan Sasikiran (who finished eighth) was also playing around this strength for a particular period of time till he entered this World Junior competition. Yet, he could not match Sadvakasov's consistency and preparation for this big event.

˛``The basic problem I had was that I did not get two months to prepare for this competition,'' said Sasikiran. ``I was coming here after playing eight tournaments at a stretch.'' His first World Junior experience has already made him conscious of the role of preparation in a serious event.

``I woke uplate. I realised that I could not make any progress without a thorough opening preparation, but by the time I acted it was late,'' explained Sasikiran.

˛Sasikiran struggled in the games against 2200-2300 players for the major part and came into his own when he met Banikas Hristodoulos in the penultimate round. ``The trouble was that I made mistakes in the first 15 to 20 moves in those games, which is not a good commentary on my opening preparation,'' remarked Sasikiran.

˛Sandeepan Chanda, with eight points, was a revelation. Scoring two points from the first five games, the West Bengal lad made six from eight later and finished 13th. But he too was not happy with his games.

``I am not really happy with the standard of my games here,'' confessed the 15-year-old Goodricke product, but agreed that this was his best performance on the rating scale. He rated his Mumbai All-India Open first place this year as a flawless performance chess-wise.

Indian placings with points:

Boys: Sasikiran 8.5 (8th),Sandeepan Chanda 8 (13th), R R Laxman 7 (21st), Sunderarajan Kidambi 7 (23rd), Neelotpal Das 7 (25th), Satyapragyan 7 (27th), Harikrishna 6.5 (34th), Mahesh Chandran 6.5 ( 38th), V Kamble 6 (42nd), K Ramu 6 (50th), Tejas Bakre (51st), S Kherdekar 5.5 (52nd), Beenish Bhatia 5.5 (55th), Manthan Chokshi 5.5 (58th), Arjun Uberoi 5 (62nd), Gillford Thangkiew 4 (67th), Praveen Menon 3.5 (69th).

Prizes: Sadvakasov: $1,000, NTPC-Triveni Trophy and gold medal, Zhang Zhong: $750 plus silver medal, Banikas: $425 plus bronze medal. 4th: $425. 5-8: $150 each and 9-14: $66.66 each.

Girls:

Vijayalakshmi 8 (7th), Pallavi Shah 8 (9th), Aarthie Ramaswamy 7.5 (13th), Koneru Humpy 7 (15th), Meenakshi 7 (17th), Swathi Ghate 6.5 (20th), Swathi Mohota 6 (25th), Prathibha 6 (29th).

Prizes:

Trang: $750 plus NTPC-Triveni Trophy and gold medal, Radziewicz: $600 plus silver medal, Krush: $400 plus bronze, Werner: $250 and 5-9: $80 each.