The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Anupama overcomes Sangeetha

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Saturday, Apr 30, 2005

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Sport - Chess

Anupama overcomes Sangeetha

H.S. Manjunath

BANGALORE: Battle scarred Anupama Gokhale remained more solid than spectacular in her fluent win over M.R. Sangeetha in the sixth round of the National women's A chess championship at the Goldfinch Hotel on Friday. The win catapulted Anupama to the top with 4.5 points in the 14-player round-robin format, even as the overnight leader Aarthie suffered a reverse at the hands of Nisha Mohota.

Anupama and Sangeetha settled down to a Catalan opening. To the surprise of her opponent and a few analysts, Sangeetha offered a draw as early as the 11th move, which Anupama rejected. There was nothing alarming about Sangeetha's position as such but from equality she switched her pieces around without a game plan after exchange of queens. Anupama swung her pieces into swift action.

That Nisha Mohota had aggressive designs when she got down to play Aarthie was evident in the choice of Rossolimo attack, branching out of a Sicilian Defence. Aarthie was inclined towards safety and she offered a draw on the 10th move, a suggestion that did not find favour with Nisha, who switched the attack on the king's flank. When Nisha's `F' pawn rolled out, Aarthie continued with poor piece play and allowed Nisha a flashy breakthrough in the form of an exciting pawn thrust to `f6.' Aarthie never found the right line of defence and allowed Nisha to rule the vital squares.

In a closed Sicilian, Mary Ann Gomes outplayed Priya while a methodical handling of a rook and pawn ending. Swati Ghate emerged on top in the battle of Swatis. Materially Ghate and Mohota may have been equal but what determined the fate of the ending was how active a role the rooks played and here Ghate proved more effective.

Bhagyashree Thipsay quickly grabbed the initiative against Raghavi to score a full point.

Results (sixth round): Bhagyashree Thipsay (3) bt Raghavi (1.5); Kruttika Nadig (2.5) lost to Nimmy George (2.5); Swati Ghate (3.5) bt Swati Mohota (2.5); Aarthie R (4) lost to Nisha Mohota (4); Priya (3) lost to Mary Ann Gomes (4); Anupama Gokhale (4.5) bt M.R. Sangeetha (3); Anuprita Patil (2.5) drew with P. Shivashankari (1.5).

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