Sunday, May 12, 2002
Sunday, May 12, 2002 |
| Sport | ||
|
News:
Front Page |
National |
Southern States |
Other States |
International |
Opinion |
Business |
Sport |
Miscellaneous |
Advts: Classifieds | Employment | Obituary | Sport
-
Chess
By Rakesh Rao
The result gave Vijayalakshmi sole possession of the lead with seven points after 10 rounds on Saturday. If Vijayalakshmi found herself alone at the top after easily repulsing a premature attack by Anupama, she owes a big thanks to Saheli Dhar-Barua. Needing a victory to bridge the gap with the front-runners, Saheli managed to surprise joint-overnight leader Bhagyashree Thipsay. A second successive victory, after Bhagyashree fell in a `trap' and lost a knight, took Saheli's tally to five points and kept alive her chances of making the four-member Indian Olympiad team. Like Saheli, Swati Ghate, too, posted her second consecutive victory by overcoming Safira Shanaz and moved to the second spot with 6.5 points. Swati, who is due to get a bye in the 12th round on Sunday afternoon, will now have to make the most of her matches against S. Meenakshi and lowly Tania Sachdev over the next two days. Bhagyashree, Harika Dronavalli and Aarthie Ramaswamy are on six points. With Bhagyashree set to get a bye in the next round, the closest challengers to Vijayalakshmi are Harika and Aarthie, who battled all the way to a dramatic draw in a match lasting over 80 moves. Vijayalakshmi is due to meet Aarthie next, followed by Sai Meera and Saheli. On Saturday, Harika had to simply play her ninth match of the tournament (remember, she had a second-round bye) for a nine-game Woman International Master (WIM) norm. In February, she had made her maiden 11-game Swiss norm in the Asian Open championship at Bikaner. Harika now has a realistic chance of completing the WIM title over the next two days. For that, Harika will have to score at least two points from the remaining three rounds — against Sai Meera, Saheli and Bhagyashree — to stake a claim for a 13-game round-robin norm. Since the rules stipulate that a player should have played a minimum of 24-game norm-games in case he or she has at least one round-robin norm, Harika shall qualify for the WIM title. Considering the average playing strength of the competitors, based on their Elo ratings, this championship offers a 12-game round-robin norm for those scoring seven points. Since Harika needs a 13-game norm for the WIM title, she will have to score more from her matches.
Aarthie runs out of time
Besides Harika, Aarthie is the other well-placed player in the competition. Aarthie's rivals in the last two rounds are debutant Eesha Karavade and an out-of-form Safira Shanaz. By continuing her fine run, should Aarthie manage a respectable result against Vijayalakshmi on Sunday morning, she will have a very good chance of enhancing her tally in the last two rounds for a great finish. In fact, Aarthie could have added half-a-point to her tally had she organised her time better over the board. In her marathon battle against Harika, Aarthie remained under tremendous time-pressure in the `sudden-death'. She did manage to `queen' a pawn following rook-and-pawn ending but all credit to Harika for exploiting Aarthie's lack of time. Aarthie chose to give up the queen and pushed another pawn to the last rank but instead of making a queen, placed a rook on the board. Harika was left with just her king but she moved it to the centre of the board. Aarthie ran out of time in her bid to force a win king and rook. Later, Aarthie admitted that, during the scramble in the dying seconds, she could not see the queen on the table and instead, grabbed the rook. Even if Aarthie had placed the rook upside down, which is deemed to be a `queen', perhaps, she could have managed to break Harika's unbeaten streak. The other decisive results were far less exciting. Sai Meera's fourth victory, in 55 moves following a rook-and-pawn ending, snapped the four-draw sequence of Dolan Champa Bose. Against Eesha, Tania beat herself by consuming 80 minutes for the first 15 moves and then messed up a promising position in time-pressure to lose in 47 moves. The results: 10th round: Swati Ghate bt Safira Shanaz; Tania Sachdev lost to Eesha Karavade; Anupama Gokhale lost to S. Vijayalakshmi; Aarthie Ramaswamy drew with Harika Dronavalli; Sai Meera bt Dolan Champa Bose; Saheli Dhar-Barua bt Bhagyashree Thipsay; S. Meenakshi bye. Standings (points/rounds played): 1. Vijayalakshmi (7/9); 2. Swati (6.5/10); 3-5 Harika (6/9), Aarthie (6/9) and Bhagyashree (6/10); 6. Meenakshi (5.5/9); 7. Saheli (5/9); 8-9 Eesha (4.5/9) and Sai Meera (4.5/9); 10. Tania (3/9); 11-12 Anupama (2.5/9) and Dolan (2.5/10); 13. Safira (2/9). Sunday's pairings: (11th round): Dolan-Saheli; Harika-Meera; Vijayalakshmi-Aarthie; Eesha-Anupama; Safira-Tania; Meenakshi-Swati; Bhagyashree bye; 12th round: Tania-Meenakshi; Anupama-Safira; Aarthie-Eesha; Meera-Vijayalakshmi; Saheli-Harika; Bhagyashree-Dolan; Swati bye.
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail
News:
Front Page |
National |
Southern States |
Other States |
International |
Opinion |
Business |
Sport |
Miscellaneous |
|
|
|
The Hindu Group: Home | About Us | Copyright | Archives | Contacts | Subscription Group Sites: The Hindu | Business Line | The Sportstar | Frontline | Home |
Copyright © 2002, The
Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of
this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of
The Hindu
|