The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Soumya holds Vijayalakshmi

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Friday, Dec 08, 2006
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Soumya holds Vijayalakshmi

Arvind Aaron

Chennai: National Junior Girls champion Soumya Swaminathan missed a golden chance to defeat top seed and six-time National champion Vijayalakshmi Subbaraman in the opening round of the 33rd Win TV National women `A' chess championship here on Thursday.

Soumya took the sacrificed bishop on the 30th turn and allowed perpetual checks to draw the game. In fact, she could have taken the rook on the same turn and lived little dangerously to win the game.

"I missed this queen sacrifice in my analysis," said Soumya when she saw the analysis of the computer chess programme Fritz, which proved that she missed the tactic on the 30th turn.

Defending champion Woman grandmaster Swati Ghate sacrificed a bishop and tore open the king side of Lakshmi Sahithi to win a breezy encounter in 20 moves.

Earlier, Viswanathan Anand made the opening move against former world under-18 girls champion Aarthie Ramesh to inaugurate the event after his wife Aruna Anand lit the traditional lamp. In his welcome address, D.V. Sundar, Secretary of the AICF said he wrote many letters to the Doha Asian Games officials that Anand wanted to play in the rapid section of the Asian Games but was told that only those who play the classical chess games in the Asian Games will only be allowed to play rapid chess.

Anand asked the women players to enjoy playing chess. He said the Indian women have many opportunities in age group chess and cited the example of Humpy.

The results (round one): S. Soumya (Mah) drew with S. Vijayalakshmi (TN), Swati Ghate (Mah) bt Lakshmi Sahithi (AP), J.E. Kavitha (TN) drew with Tania Sachdev (Del), D. Harika (AP) bt Amruta Mokal (Mah), P. Priya (TN) drew with S. Meenakshi (TN), Eesha Karavade (Mah) bt R. Sanggeetha (TN), Baisakhi Das (Jha) drew with Nisha Mohota (Ben), Aarthie Ramesh (TN) drew with N. Raghavi (TN), Bhakti Kulkarni (Goa) lost to Nimmy George (Ker), Padmini Rout (Ori) bt R. Preethi (TN), R. Mahima (TN) bt Kruttika Nadig (Kar), I. Ramyakrishna (AP) bt Pon N. Krithikha (TN), S. Sujatha (TN) lost to Saheli Nath (Ben), Sai Meera (TN) bt Kanuri Tejaswi (AP), H. Nilavoli (TN) drew with Swati Mohota (Ben), Kiran Mohanty (Ori) bt Aabha Thakur (Mah), S. Harini (TN) 1 - bye.

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