Meenakshi maintains lead

By Our Sports Reporter

KOZHIKODE, DEC. 28. Scoring her fourth win in as many days, S. Meenkashi continued her fine run in the 15th National junior girls' chess championship. The top seed from Indian Airlines maintained her sole lead, defeating N. Sandhya in the sixth round at the V.K. Krishna Menon Indoor Stadium here on Thursday.

Meenakshi has 5.5 points, half a point ahead of the third seed Manasi Dadarkar of Maharashtra, who defeated H. Niranjana Devi of T. Nagar Chess Academy, Chennai. Nimmy A. George of Kerala, who beat J.E. Kavitha of Tamil Nadu with black pieces, has 4.5 points.

There were two surprises today, as Anuprita Patil of Maharashtra beat Y. Prathiba of Tamil Nadu and E. Lakshmi of Karnataka defeated fourth seed Ashwini Kulkarni of Maharashtra.

Two more rounds remain to be played. On Friday, Meenakshi takes on Kavitha on the top board and Nimmy meets Manasi on the second.

After her victory against Manasi on Wednesday, Meenakshi had said that she was impressed by Sandhya and that she expected a good fight from the local girl. Sandhya did not let her down, and indeed fought well to begin with on the top board, as she adopted King's Indian Defence. She was able to equalise in the opening and had a promising position before she crumbled against another solid display from the Chennai girl, who is a bit too good for the rest of the field.

Sandhya erred on the 25th move, when she retreated her queen to `d8' up from the queen-side. A move later Meenakshi won a rook for her bishop and took control. Black resigned on the 32nd move, when she was losing another exchange.

``I could not play as well as I would have liked to,'' said Meenakshi afterwards. ``And Sandhya did well in the opening, but I was always confident that I would somehow break through.''

On the second board Manasi, with black pieces, had it rather easy. In a Centre Counter, Niranjana decided to give her two pieces for a rook and two pawns. It proved counter productive, as black got her pawns back on the 21st and 23rd moves. Manasi's knights combined well to wreak havoc and a desperate Niranjana sacrificed her rook on the 35th move, but gained nothing. A move later, she resigned, two pieces down.

Kavitha played Bishop Opening on the third board and created weak squares herself, pushing her pawns forward. Nimmy was under severe time pressure and had to give back the pawn she won, but Kavitha blundered a piece on the 39th move, when she allowed black's knight to fork her queen and rook. She resigned two moves later.

On the fourth board, Prathiba adopted French Defence and, after castling long, she made her `d' pawn weak by exchanging the queens on the 19th move. Six moves later Anuprita won two pieces for a rook and she also took full advantage of black's too many weak pawns. She went on to win three pawns and the second seed finally gave up on the 51st move.

Lakshmi beat Ashwini in 27 moves of Sicilian Alapin.

The results (sixth round): S. Meenakshi (IA) 5.5 bt N. Sandhya (Ker) 4; H. Niranjana Devi (T. Nagar Chess Academy, Chennai) 3.5 lost to Manasi Dadarkar (Mah) 5; J.E. Kavitha (TN) 4 lost to Nimmy George (Ker) 4.5; Anuprita Patil (Mah) 4 bt Y. Prathiba (TN) 3; E. Lakshmi (Kar) 4 bt Ashwini Kulkarni (Mah) 3; Aswathi Balagopalan (Ker) 3 lost to T.T. Lakshmipriyaa (Emanuel Chess Academy, Chennai) 4; M. Kasturi (TN) 4 bt Cija Augustus (Ker) 3; M.R. Sangeetha (TN) 3.5 bt Neenu A. George (Ker) 2; Nazia Nona (Ker) 2 lost to Pooja Rathod (MP) 3.5; Pooja Rashivadekar (Kar) 2 lost to Ra. Mahima (TN) 3; Swati Sengupta (Ben) 2 lost to Navya J. Thykattil (Ker) 3; H. Praja Devi (TN) 2.5 drew with Thelma Gopal (Ker) 2.5; K. Prajeesha (Ker) 2.5 drew with A. Deepa (Kar) 2.5; Kashmira Neogi (Kar) 2.5 drew with Suravi Dutta (Ben) 2; Thelma Gopal (Ker) 2.5; M. Karthika (Lak) 1 lost to Nadia Nona (Ker) 2.5; Sonia Balagopalan (Ker) 1.5 bye.

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