The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Mohota sisters hog the limelight

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Sunday, May 01, 2005

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Sport - Chess

Mohota sisters hog the limelight

H.S. Manjunath

BANGALORE: The Mohota sisters — Swati and Nisha — hogged the seventh round limelight in the National women's `A' chess championship here on Saturday.

In keeping with the trend so far, the leader board saw two new names on top. Mary-Ann Gomes and Nisha jointly head the 14-player field with five points each.

It was Swati Mohota who set the stage alight in the morning. Playing the former world under-18 champion Aarthie with white pieces, Swati's refreshingly bold approach in the opening brought her a distinct advantage in a Nimzo Indian set up. Aarthie was yet again slow on the take off with at least two of her pieces not living up to full potential.

A timely pawn thrust almost always brings about dangerous liaisons and Swati's instinctive pawn push to F5 opened a whole range of combative possibilities. An added advantage for Swati was that she co-ordinated her pieces well while Aarthie had a few problems to sort out with her own `development.'

Thus the ground was fertile for Swati to try out some teasing piece play with which she brought Aarthie to her knees. Momentarily, Aarthie may have captured Swati's queen, but she had to surrender her own to keep a lethal attack developing on a brittle king side.

Nisha in control

Buoyed by her sister's success, Nisha had more or less settled the fate of her contest with Priya in the first dozen moves. Nisha not only had the space advantage but greater mobility. The first crack came when Priya had her pawn structure on the king side shattered and a Nisha knight managed to gobble a pawn. An extra pawn to the good and Priya saddled with a sleepy knight that had not seen daylight till 20 moves combined effectively to leave Nisha with an easy ending.

Mary-Ann resolutely handled a transposed King's Indian against the overnight leader Anupama Gokhale. An unclear knight sortie on the queen's side had its own ill effects on Anupama who ended up conceding a 1-3 pawn majority on that wing. With the position offering no real chances for a fightback, Anupama hung on for 41 moves before Mary-Ann made a decisive breakthrough.

The results (seventh round): P. Shivashankari (1.5) lost to Bhagyashree Thipsay (4), M.R. Sangeetha (3) lost to Anuprita Patil (3.5), Mary-Ann Gomes (5) bt Anupama Gokhale (4.5), Nisha Mohota (5) bt Priya (3), Swati Mohota (3.5) bt Aarthie R (4), Nimmy A. George (2.5) lost to Swathi Ghate (4.5), Raghavi (2) drew with Kruttika Nadig (2.5).

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