Li Ruofan stretches lead

By Arvind Aaron

CHENNAI, SEPT. 10. The two Indians who were in the second place, Aarthie Ramaswamy and Swati Ghate, lost in the ninth round as China's Li Ruofan stretched her lead to a full point in the 9th India Cements Asian Women's chess championship at Hotel Taj Connemara here on Monday.

Time came to Beijing IWM Li Ruofan's help in her triumph over Aarthie Ramaswamy for whom this was the first defeat in this tournament. Li Ruofan has 7.5 points and is followed by the top two seeds, Vijayalakshmi Subbaraman and Wang Yu of China, on 6.5 points each.

Aarthie, Nisha Mohota and Swati Ghate are tied for the fourth place with six points each and along with Huang Qian of China have qualifying chances.

Two rounds remain to be played in this 31-player 11- round Swiss format tournament. The winner will be decided on Wednesday.

Indians bowing to the Chinese on the top table has become a routine. Aarthie was beaten in a theoretical game that followed the Anand-Timoshenko, Frunze 1987 game till move 23. Aarthie tried to improve on Anand's 24th move in this closed Ruy Lopez and soon sacrificed a rook for minor piece and two pawns. Black was in time to equalise and won a pawn on move-36. When white was about to lose the second pawn Aarthie overstepped the time control before making her 57th move.

Li Ruofan said, ``The game was in balance for most of the time but white was lost in the final position.''

Aarthie said she had enough compensation for rook and was even `winning' at one stage.

Viji bounces back

Vijayalakshmi bounced back from defeat to score a scintillating 46-move victory over Swati Ghate with the white pieces from a Slav defence. Swati, who won all her five previous games, broke down after her loss. The going was good for the Pune girl till move-30. A minor mistake on move-31 gave Vijayalakshmi the advantage and the tournament favourite never looked back. Chasing the black queen, and at the same time gaining tempi, white won a rook for her bishop and pawn. On move- 45, white tore black's last cover around her king with a rook sacrifice to net the black queen. This forced Swati's resignation, on move-46.

Second seed Wang Yu, playing white, scored a theoretical victory against a Sicilian Najdorf opening of Kazakhstan's Sergeeva Maria, whose rook sacrifice for bishop and two pawns was clearly inadequate as the active white rook decided the issue in 50 moves.

Leader in the early rounds, Nisha Mohota, arrested her slide with a victory over Nguyen Thi Thanh An of Vietnam with the black pieces in 38 moves from a transposed English opening. The Vietnamese paid the price for accepting a pawn bait on the 25th turn. It let Nisha gain a huge offensive against the white king. White's ill-guarded king side was devastated. The Vietnamese IWM, who is ranked nine places ahead of the Indian, resigned when she lost a rook.

``My father asked me to go all out,'' said Nisha about the telephone conversation she had with her father last evening.

The game between the two untitled Chinese players was won by Huang Qian in 34 moves. Yu Ting who played black, allowed the white knight to park itself quite aggressively near her king. Later, she allowed one more pawn shatter on the king side that weakened her defensive chances.

The first major seeded player to lose qualification chance is the third seeded WGM Zhao Xue of China who was the runner-up in this year's World junior at Greece. Her conqueror was Elena Levushkina of Uzbekistan. Zhao overlooked two tactics, one on the 21st move when black won a rook for minor piece and the decisive one when black played a splendid rook sacrifice to win on the 31st move.

Dronavalli Harika played well to win two pieces for a rook against highly rated Vietnamese IWM Le Kieu Thien Kim. The experienced rival used her rook and pawn well to draw the Reti opening game in 54 moves. Harika has impressed in her nine games with 4.5 points. Like the famous Andhra prodigies Harika too doesn't open with her king pawn. At 4.5 points, she has lost qualification possibilities but should be gaining Elo.

Woman GM Mekhri Geldeyeva of Turkmenistan was too strong for Anupama Gokhale, winning a Catalan opening game in 55 moves with the black pieces. Meenakshi Subbaraman won a sharp 31- move battle against Saheli Barua with the white pieces from a Dutch defence. Meenakshi used a pawn decoy to gain access for her queen and engage the black king to force resignation.

Kasturi upsets Gu Xiaobing

M. Kasturi who is India's latest IM was presented a cheque for Rs. 1,000 by Mrs P.A. Mangalam, chairman, Chakravarthy Matriculation School, Chennai for winning the Asian Junior at Iran last month. Kasturi upset higher rated Chinese, Gu Xiaobing with the black pieces in the longest game of the round that lasted 80 moves. Kasturi adopted the Sicilian Sveshnikov variation and dominated the game. In the knight ending she sacrificed her knight for white's passed pawn. Kasturi has 4.5 points but has no chances of being in the top seven.

Four Indians have qualification chances. The penultimate round pairing is against us as two of the top three boards features pairings among our players. The pairings are done by a software programme and checked for errors by human arbiters. Vijayalakshmi (6.5) faces Aarthie (6) and Swati Ghate (6) takes on Meenakshi (5). Nisha Mohota (6) plays Yu Ting with the black pieces.

The results (ninth round): Aarthie Ramaswamy (Ind) 6 lost to Li Ruofan (Chn) 7.5, S. Vijayalakshmi (Ind) 6.5 bt Swati Ghate (Ind) 6, Wang Yu (Chn) 6.5 bt Sergeeva Maria (Kaz) 5, Nguyen Thi Thanh An (Vie) 5 lost to Nisha Mohota (Ind) 6, Huang Qian (Chn) 6 bt Yu Ting (Chn) 5, Zhao Xue (Chn) 4.5 lost to Elena Levushkina (Uzb) 5, D. Harika (Ind) 4.5 drew with Le Kieu Thien Kim (Ind) 4.5, Anupama Gokhale (Ind) 4 lost to Mekhri Geldeyeva (Trk) 5, Anjela Khegay (Uzb) 4.5 drew with Zhang Jilin (Chn) 4.5, S. Meenakshi (Ind) 5 bt Saheli Barua (Ind) 3.5, Gu Xiaobing (Chn) 3.5 lost to M. Kasturi (Ind) 4.5, Zakia Sultana (Ban) 3.5 lost to Iroda Khamrakulova (Uzb) 4.5, Rani Hamid (Ban) 4 bt Y. Prathiba (Ind) 3, Bhagyashree Thipsay (Ind) 3.5 drew with Vineetha Wijesuriya (Sri) 3, Anupama Konara (Sri) 3 drew with Afroza Khanam Bably (Ban) 3.5, Nazrana Khan (Ban) 3.5 - bye.

The moves: IWM Aarthie Ramaswamy-IWM Li Ruofan, round nine, Ruy Lopez, C92: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 d6 8.c3 0-0 9.h3 Bb7 10.d4 Re8 11.Nbd2 Bf8 12.a4 h6 13.Bc2 exd4 14.cxd4 Nb4 15.Bb1 c5 16.d5 Nd7 17.Ra3 c4 18.Nd4 Qf6 19.N2f3 Nc5 20.axb5 axb5 21.Nxb5 Rxa3 22.Nxa3 Ba6 23.Re3 Rb8 24.Ne1 g6 25.Rc3 Nbd3 26.Nxd3 cxd3 27.Bxd3 Nxd3 28.Rxd3 Bxd3 29.Qxd3 Bg7 30.Nc4 Qd4 31.Qxd4 Bxd4 32.Bf4 Rb4 33.Nxd6 Rxb2 34.Bg3 Rb1+ 35.Kh2 Rf1 36.Nc4 Bxf2 37.Bxf2 Rxf2 38.Kg3 Ra2 39.Kf3 f6 40.Ne3 Kf7 41.g4 g5 42.Nf5 Ra3+ 43.Kg2 Kg6 44.Ne7+ Kf7 45.Nf5 Ke8 46.Nxh6 Kd7 47.Nf5 Rb3 48.h4 gxh4 49.Nxh4 Re3 50.Nf5 Rxe4 51.Kf3 Re5 52.d6 Ke6 53.Kf4 Ra5 54.Kg3 Ra1 55.Kf4 Rg1 56.Kf3 Ke5 57.Ne3 0-1.

WGM S. Vijayalakshmi-IWM Swati Ghate, round nine, Slav defence, D17: 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 dxc4 5.a4 Bf5 6.Ne5 Nbd7 7.Nxc4 Qc7 8.g3 e5 9.dxe5 Nxe5 10.Bf4 Nfd7 11.Bg2 f6 12.0-0 Nc5 13.e4 Bg6 14.Qe2 Be7 15.Nxe5 fxe5 16.Be3 Bf7 17.Kh1 0-0 18.f4 Nb3 19.Rad1 Bf6 20.f5 Rad8 21.g4 Nd4 22.Qf2 Qe7 23.Bh3 Bc4 24.Rg1 Bh4 25.Qg2 Bg5 26.Bxg5 Qxg5 27.Qg3 Rfe8 28.Bf1 Bb3 29.Rd3 Qf4 30.Qh3 b5 31.Re3 b4 32.Ne2 Nxe2 33.Bxe2 Bc2 34.Rf1 Qg5 35.f6 gxf6 36.Rf5 Qg7 37.g5 fxg5 38.Qg2 Kh8 39.Bh5 b3 40.Bxe8 Rxe8 41.Rxg5 Qd7 42.Qf2 Qe7 43.Rf5 Rg8 44.Rf7 Qg5 45.Rxh7+ Kxh7 46.Qf7+ 1-0.

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