The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Mary-Ann and Aarthie share the lead

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Apr 27, 2005

Sport

Sport - Chess

Mary-Ann and Aarthie share the lead

H. S. Manjunath

BANGALORE: Mary-Ann Gomes's accurate positional play found the right expression when she carved out a 62-move win over a typically stoic Kruttika Nadig in the third round of the National A Women's chess Championship at the Goldfinch Hotel on Tuesday.

Mary-Ann shares the lead with R. Aarthie, who once again had to thank her stars that a relatively inexperienced opponent in P. Shivashankari completely mishandled a clear advantage in space and mobility with a passed pawn to boot! Mary-Ann and Aarthie jointly lead the table with three points apiece.

It was another disappointing day for WGM Swathi Ghate who found herself totally cramped for room after coming out rather poorly in developing her pieces in a middle game arising out of an irregular queen's pawn opening. Seizing on this opportunity, Sangeetha was quick to take control of the "Centre" but of greater significance was her idea of grabbing an open "D" file and doubling her rooks to take absolute control of it.

Desperate measures

Saddled with an eyesore of double pawns on the E file, Swathi was driven to desperate defending measures. The ultimate was when Swathi tried to get her self out of the mess with an exchange offer — she gave away her rook for Sangeetha's bishop — but that cut no ice in the end.

Mary-Ann and Kruttika got down to a variation of a Grunfeld Defence in which the queens normally disappear early. The two traded off their heavy piece as early as the sixth move. But one ambitious pawn push by Kruttika seemingly opened up fresh avenues for Mary-Ann. This C pawn thrust by Kruttika proved her undoing in the end as too many weaknesses came in its wake. Though Kruttika put up a brave defence it was increasingly clear that positionally, she could do nothing to halt Mary-Ann's triumphant march.

Niether Anupama Gokhale nor Bhagyashree Thipsay can recall as to how many times the two must have matched wits across the table. The two war veterans got down to another of their gladiatorial contests and this time Anupama turned up trumps.

Anupama got down to the brighter side of the Catalan Opening quickly enough, an advantage she built meticulously on. While Anupama retained that initiative with some imaginative piece play, Bhagyashree got down to a phase of passivity when two of her pieces were badly bogged down.

The results (third round): Anupama Gokhale (2) bt Bhagyashree Thipsay (1.5), Anuprita Patil (0.5) drew with Priya (1), P. Shivashankari (1) lost to R. Aarthie (3), M.R. Sangeetha (2) bt Swathi Ghate (1), Mary-Ann Gomes (3) bt Kruttika Nadig (2), Nisha Mohota drew with Raghavi (0.5), Swati Mohota (1.5) bt Nimmy George (0.5).

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