Thursday, Nov 13, 2003
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Chess
By P. K. Ajith Kumar
IM. S. Vijayalakshmi making a move against Saimeera Ravi in the sixth round of the National women's A chess championship at Kozhikode on Wednesday. WGM Nisha Mohota watches the proceedings. — Photo: S. Ramesh Kurup
C.V. Rajalakshmi from Chennai found that out on Wednesday, in the sixth round of the Oilum 30th National women's `A' chess championship at the Chess India Complex. The debutante, who is having a torrid time, promptly became the top seed's sixth victim. The Vijayawada prodigy has now six points, and maintained her one-point lead over her nearest rivals — second seed S. Vijayalakshmi of Indian Airlines and sixth seed Nisha Mohota of LIC. Defending champion Aarthie Ramaswamy of Tamil Nadu, who was held to a draw by Tania Sachdev from Delhi and Dronavalli Harika of Andhra have 4.5 points each. The day's upset was authored by Eesha Karvade of Maharashtra, who surprised Swati Ghate of LIC. The fifth seed is not really playing at her best in this tournament, but it nevertheless was a memorable win for Eesha, a promising teenager. Rajalakshmi, who is a better player than her score (or the lack of it) in this tournament would suggest, employed Benko Gambit and didn't do too badly. And she was in no real trouble until the 25th move, when she rode her knight to the wrong square. That allowed Humpy's knight to enjoy a nice a outpost. Black continued to be generous and let her formidable rival to take control of the king-rook file, which the former could have prevented with a pawn push. Rajalakshmi resigned on the 39th move, facing a tough choice: she could either give an exchange or see her queen getting trapped. "But she was playing well initially," said Humpy later. "I came for this game without any preparation at all, as I never played her before and her games were not available."
Vijayalakshmi toils hard
Vijayalakshmi played Larsen Attack against Saimeera Ravi of Indian Bank and really had to toil for a 58-move win. Black in fact was placed better after the opening, and also at the beginning of a prolonged minor-piece ending, which featured a rare under-promotion by Saimeera of the pawn (into knight, to avoid a fork). She had more than one chance to take half a point off the seven-time champion with her knight against White's knight and pawn. Grandmasters Evgeny Vladimirov and Ruslan Sherbakov, both familiar faces for Indian players as coaches, pointed out that she missed a draw with her very lastmove in the game as well. To be fair to Saimeera though, she was playing under severe time pressure. Interestingly, a similar position had occurred in a famous game in 1949 between P. Benko and D. Bronstein, which was drawn. Eesha adopted Grunfeld Defence against Swati, who played a rare line popularised among Indian women players by Nisha Mohota at the last National women's `A' meet (against Eesha). The younger of the two Pune girls enjoyed a better position from the opening itself and forced Swati to give an exchange on the 20th move. Black finally gave up on the 51st move. It was Eesha's first ever win against Swati, after four losses and a draw. Nisha defeated Anupama Gokhale of Bharat Petroleum in 48 moves of Grunfeld Defence, while Harika, with black pieces, beat M.R. Sangeetha of Tamil Nadu in 46 moves of Sicilian Defence. Pune girl Kruttika Nadig did well to hold former champion Bhagyashree Thipsay from Mumbai in 29 moves of Caro-Kann. The results (sixth round): Tania Sachdev (Del) 2.5 drew with Aarthie Ramaswasmy (TN) 4.5; M.R. Sangeetha (TN) 1.5 lost to D. Harika (AP) 4.5; Nisha Mohota (LIC) 5 bt Anupama Gokhale (BP) 2.5; Kruttika Nadig (Mah) 2 drew with Bhagyashree Thipsay (IDBI) 1.5; S. Vijayalakshmi (IA) 5 bt Saimeera Ravi (IB) 2; Swati Ghate (LIC) 2.5 lost to Eesha Karvade (Mah) 3.5; Saheli Nath (Ben) 2.5 drew with Y. Prathiba (TN) 3; Koneru Humpy (AP) 6 bt C.V. Rajalakshmi (TN) 0; S. Meenakshi (IA) 3.5 bt Koneru Chandra Hawsa (AP) 2.
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