The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Harika, Tania struggle to win

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Wednesday, Nov 07, 2007
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Sport - Chess

Harika, Tania struggle to win

Rakesh Rao

Easy for Nisha, Swati and Eesha

The first seven seeds won as expected
Pon N. Krithika beat C.H. Savetha in 127 moves

PUNE: Top seed D. Harika and Asian women’s champion Tania Sachdev survived several anxious moments before limping off to a winning start after local girl Anuprita Patil provided the first surprise of the 34th women’s National ‘A’ chess championship by proving equal to Asian girls’ champion Mary Ann Gomes at the SIMS Complex here on Tuesday.

The first seven seeds won as expected on a day when the top half of the field played the lower half.

Harika’s first-round rival P. Priya had shown good form in the second half of the World junior championship in Armenia last month to take the 13th spot as against her seeding of 27.

A confident Priya (Tamil Nadu) was quickly off the blocks and forced Harika in a spot of bother in the Nimzo game.

Good recovery

Harika, who had overlooked a twin threat from a knight, recovered well to repulse a queenside offensive.

Once the queens were off the board, Harika managed to seize the initiative by pushing her kingside pawns.

A desperate Priya chose to trade her rook for Harika’s bishop and an advanced pawn, but that did not help her cause.

Priya gave up on the 43rd move when faced with a loss of bishop.

Tania, the defending champion and third seed, too, won in 43 moves against M.R. Sangeetha, but not before coming out of an unpleasant position.

Once Tania managed to open the queenside files and exchanged the rooks, she played accurately with the pair of bishops and forced Sangeetha to give up.

Anuprita brought some cheer to the locals after holding a rusty Mary in a violent exchange of pieces that left the players with a knight each and pawns after just 24 moves of Sicilian Defence.

No chance

Mary, out of competitive chess for the better part of this year in order to concentrate on academics, had no real chance of forcing a better result.

Second seed Nisha Mohota was the day’s first winner following her 27-move cakewalk over R. Preethi.

Other Woman GMs like Swati Ghate, Eesha Karavade and Aarthie Ramaswamy also won as expected.

In the day’s longest game, lasting 127 moves, Tamil Nadu youngster Pon N. Krithika overcame C.H. Savetha, the lowest rated player in the competition.

The results:

First round: D. Harika bt P. Priya; R. Preethi lost to Nisha Mohota; Tania Sachdev bt M.R. Sangeetha; Swati Mohota lost to Eesha Karavade; Aarthie Ramaswamy bt Baisakhi Das.

Syed Nabeela Farheen lost to Swati Ghate; Kiran Manisha Mohanty bt Rucha Pujari; Anuprita Patil drew with Mary Ann Gomes.

Soumya Swaminathan bt S. Harini; U. Uthra lost to Padmini Rout; Sai Meera bt Ch. Divyasri; Dhyani Dave lost to Nimmy George; Amruta Mokal bt S. Athirai; C.H. Savetha lost to Pon N. Krithika.

Second round pairings: Padmini-Harika; Nisha-Kiran; Nimmy-Tania; Eesha-Soumya; Krithika-Aarthie; Swati Ghate-Sai Meera; Mary-Amruta; Priya-Anuprita; Harini-Preethi; Sangeetha-Uthra; Divyasri-Swati Mohota; Baisakhi-Dhyani; Athirai-Nabeela; Rucha-Savetha.

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