The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Swathi Ghate surges back

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Thursday, Apr 28, 2005

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Sport - Chess

Swathi Ghate surges back

H.S. Manjunath

BANGALORE: The two overnight leaders, R. Aarthie and Mary-Ann Gomes met a tartar in the fourth round that saw the resurgence of Swathi Ghate in the National Women's `A' chess championship here on Wednesday afternoon. The toast of the day was M.R. Sangeetha's tactical win over Aarthie.

With two successive defeats, Swathi Ghate may have been a bit low on spirits but the seasoned performer that she is, she hardly allowed these setbacks to affect her. She got down to play a game of minimal risks from the white side of an English variation to the Najdorf defence, a mainline Sicilian formation and always had Mary-Ann's grand designs within her sights.

Though, Mary-Ann came out nearly equal in the opening, her choice of an ambitious pawn offer on the queen side in expectation for some purchase on mobility of her pieces brought her no real worth. That was indeed the beginning of Mary Gomes' end, so to speak.

Absolute dominance

On one hand, Swathi Ghate's pair of bishops assumed absolute dominance. On the other Mary-Ann's pawn structure was not only crippled but it came in the way of one of her pieces moving about freely. That was clearly an invitation for trouble. From such an advantageous position it was just a matter of time and technique for Swathi.

The choice of Sangeetha's opening, French Defence, perhaps had a hidden message for Aarthie. Normally this opening calls for solidity of positional play and to Sangeetha's credit it must be said that she had more or less emerged equal from the opening within the first half a dozen moves. It was in the early middle game that Aarthie gave the impression that she had no concrete plan to pursue.

With her steps with either her queen or rooks uncertain, Sangeetha stumbled upon a chance to do some tactical fishing. One such move was a bishop advance, which arraigned Aarthie's queen and a rook both of which were in the same line.

To avoid loss of material, Aarthie was forced to capture this bishop for the loss of a very well placed knight. Even after this passive play, Aarthie had chances to go in for a relatively safe ending.

But by allowing Sangeetha a pawn push to `e3', fortunes dramatically changed for Aarthie.

The results (fourth round): Bhagyashree Thipsay (2) drew with Nimmy George (1), Raghavi drew with Swati Mohota (2), Kruttika Nadig (2) lost to Nisha Mohota (2.5), Swathi Ghate (2) bt Mary-Ann Gomes (3), Aarthie (3) lost to M.R. Sangeetha (3), Priya (2) bt Shivashankari (1), Anupama Gokhale (2.5) drew with Anuprita Patil (1).

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