The Hindu : Sport : Mary Ann Gomes's dream-run continues

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Apr 12, 2006

Sport

Sport

Mary Ann Gomes's dream-run continues

V.V. Subrahmanyam

VISAKHAPATNAM: Mary Ann Gomes may not be too bothered now that she had to miss her 10th standard examinations as they clashed with her current campaign in the 32nd National `A' women's chess championship here.

Her dream-run continued with another victory at the Swarna Bharathi Indoor Stadium here. She defeated Alka Das on Tuesday in just 23 moves in an 11th round game, and is now in the second spot, with seven points, behind Swathi Ghate who has 7.5 points.

Mary opted for an English Opening symmetrical variation and capitalised on some tactical blunders by Alka, to inch closer to her dream of making it to the Indian Olympiad team for the first time.

It was a satisfying day for the Subbaraman sisters too, both winning their 11th round games. WGM Vijayalakshmi defeated Swati Mohota in a Reti London Variation, while WGM Meenakshi overcame I. Ramyakrishna of Hyderabad, in a Queen's Gambit Declined exchange variation.

Defending champion Nisha Mohota, for a change, tasted victory, defeating Ishwarya Shobhana in a King's Indian Defence.

Singh joint second

In the 43rd National `A' men's championship, Diwakar Prasad Singh continued to impress, having 8.5 points at the end of the 12th round with a win over B.S. Sivanandan, to be joint second with Surya Sekhar Ganguly.

Apparently, D.P. Singh seems to be enjoying the freedom of being tucked away in a corner, far away from the media glare. The 28-year-old, on contract with Tata Steel, outsmarted his rival in a Grunfeld Defence. Sivanandan faltered on the 11th move as the unassuming Singh dominated from there and forced Sivanandan to resign.

Sivanandan was so perplexed that even after the game he wrote down the wrong result on the scoresheet only to be corrected by arbirter Gopalkrishnan.

Defending champion Surya Sekhar Ganguly outplayed GM R.B. Ramesh in a Four Knights Defence. With Ramesh strangely not able to produce the right moves in the opening game itself, he handed the game on a platter to Ganguly who just took 20 moves to secure the win.

GM-elect J. Deepan Chakravarthy settled for a 28-move draw with Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury in a Semi Slav Defence to join Koneru Humpy at the top with nine points each.

World No. 2 Koneru Humpy, who outwitted IM Sriram Jha late on Monday evening, also signed the truce with M.R. Venkatesh in 18 moves in a Nimzo Indian Defence.

The results:

Men (12th round): D.P. Singh (8.5) bt B.S. Sivanandan (4.5); Koneru Humpy (9) drew with M.R. Venkatesh (7.5); A. Kunte (7) drew with S. Jha (3); S. Kidambi (6.5) drew with M.S. Thejkumar (4); A. Gupta (5.5) lost to Sandipan Chanda (6.5); H. Sharma (3.5) drew with Dinesh K. Sharma (3.5); S.S. Ganguly (8.5) bt R.B. Ramesh (5.5); S. Roy Chowdhury (6.5) drew with Deepan Chakravarthy (9); S. Arun Prasad (6) drew with V. Kamble (4); A. Das (4) lost to P.D.S. Girinath (4); Lanka Ravi (3.5) bye.

Women (11th round): Anupama Gokhale (3.5) lost to J.E. Kavitha (5); M. Supriya (4) bt K. Monisha Mohanty (5.5); Aarthie Ramaswamy (5.5) bt Soumya Swaminathan (3): S. Vijayalakshmi (6.5) bt Swati Mohota (4.5): S. Meenakshi (6.5) bt I. Ramyakrishna (4.5); D. Harika (6.5) drew with Nimmy A. George (6.5); Nisha Mohota (5.5) bt Ishwarya Shobhana (5); Mary Ann Gomes (7) bt Alka Das (3); Eesha Karvade (5.5) bt Amruta Mokal (4); Swathi Ghate (7.5) bye.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail