NEW DELHI: Mary Ann Gomes overpowered defending champion and Woman Grandmaster Hoang Thi Bao Tram with surprising ease and helped Kiran Monisha Mohanty become the leader among the girls following an eventful seventh-round action in the Asian junior chess championships here on Sunday.

In the boys' section, S.P. Sethuraman brought down overnight leader Deep Sengupta, Grandmaster Nguyen Ngoc Troung Son toyed with G. Rohit and M. Shyam Sundar crushed National junior champion Abhijeet Gupta to form a three-player leaders' group. Two rounds remain in the competition.

Apart from Deep and Abhijeet, fellow International Master and defending champion S. Arun Prasad also lost after facing Uzbekistan's Dzhurabek Khamrakulov.

Avenging defeat

Mary, playing black, was looking to avenge the loss suffered to Tram in the previous edition of the championship at Bikaner in December 2004. After the Vietnamese girl's early aggression in this Sicilian Dragon game, Mary broke through the queenside and picked up three pawns to tighten her grip. In an ending involving minor pieces, Tram accepted the inevitable in 62 moves.

A little later, Kiran proved her superiority over Amrutha in 50 moves with another flawless performance. Kiran gained a rook for a minor piece and a pawn in the middle game, but returned it in time to enter the endgame with two extra pawns. She added one more pawn before Amrutha realised the futility in continuing.

On a day when the winners from the top-six boards played black, Lakshmi Sahiti stunned National junior girls' champion Soumya Swaminathan in a wild, tactical battle. Kruttika Nadig and R. Preethi were the other winners on the leading boards.

Impressive wins

Meanwhile, the open category saw Sethuraman, Son and Shyam Sundar post impressive victories to move to the top.

Sethuraman, whose talent has attracted praise from Viswanathan Anand, did not give Deep much of a chance after emerging better following the exchange of most of the major pieces. The advanced pawn on the queenside ensured Sethuraman's victory in 40 moves.

Shyam Sundar, another Tamil Nadu boy, gained the upperhand against GM-norm holder Abhijeet with an early kingside offensive. Abhijeet gave up in 31 moves when faced with the threat of checkmate.

The results (seventh round, Indians unless stated): Open: S.P. Sethuraman (5.5) bt Deep Sengupta (5); Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son (Vie, 5.5) bt G. Rohit (4.5); M. Shyam Sundar (5.5) bt Abhijeet Gupta (4.5); G.N. Gopal (5) drew with Ashwin Jayaram (5); S. Arun Prasad (4) lost to Dzhurabek Khamrakulov (Uzb, 5); B. Adhiban (5) bt Akshat Khamparia (4); S. Nitin (4) lost to Rahul Sangma (5); Swayams Mishra (4) lost to M.R. Lalith Babu (5); R. Premnath (4) lost to R. Ashwath (4.5); T. Purushothaman (3.5) lost to D. Sai Srinivas (4.5); Swapnil Dhopade (4.5) bt Anwesh Upadhayay (3.5); Shinya Kojima (Jpn, 3) lost to Debashish Das (4); Venkat Sundaram (4) bt Soumitra Majumdar (3).

Girls: Hoang Thi Bao Tram (Vie, 5) lost to Mary Ann Gomes (5.5); Amrutha Mokal (4.5) lost to Kiran Monisha Mohanty (6); Soumya Swaminathan (4) lost to P. Lakshmi Sahiti (5.5); K. Tejaswi (4) lost to Kruttika Nadig (5); Baisakhi Das (4) lost to R. Preethi (5); Saheli Nath (4.5) bt P. Priya (3.5); Padmini Rout (4) drew with M. Rajadarshini (3.5); Nadiya Tashimova (Kaz, 3.5) drew with Ketaki Kulkarni (3.5); Nguyen Thi Hanh (Vie, 3) lost to Syed Nabeela Farheen (4); Shohreh Bayat (Iri, 4) bt Jimli Barua (3); Dhara Gupta (3.5) bt Dimagi Gunasekera (Sri, 2.5).

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