Vijayalakshmi in with a fighting chance

By Arvind Aaron

CHENNAI, SEPT. 11. Woman Grandmaster Vijayalakshmi Subbaraman bridged the gap with Chinese leader Li Ruofan with a chance less victory over team-mate Aarthie Ramaswamy in the tenth round of the 9th India Cements Asian Women's chess championship here at Hotel Taj Connemara on Tuesday.

After an eventful penultimate round, Li Ruofan leads with eight points from ten rounds. Vijayalakshmi is close behind on 7.5 and has a chance to catch up with her or maybe even overtake the Chinese.

The last round will be played on Wednesday morning and the arbiters have confirmed that in case Li Ruofan draws with Swati Ghate and Vijayalakshmi defeats Elena Levushkina of Uzbekistan, the Indian will be declared the winner on better tie- break: the only handicap being that Vijayalakshmi will be playing with black pieces and Li Ruofan with the white pieces.

The Chinese had objected to the using of ``progressive score tie- break system'' which favours Vijayalakshmi. The arbiters have instructions from the Indian Chess Federation in Kozhikode that the system announced at the start should be followed and there will be ``no change'' in the rules.

The qualifying interest is also wide open with only Li Ruofan and Vijayalakshmi having secured confirmed berths in the World Women's chess championship starting in Moscow on November 24.

The other five places is up for grabs with Swati Ghate (Ind), Nisha Mohota (Ind) and Wang Yu (Chn) being the favourites. They all have seven points each. The arbiters say that Nisha Mohota and Wang Yu are certain to make the qualification owing to their superior tie-break score. Swati Ghate will need a draw to be in the top `six plus one'.

Tied for the fifth place on six points are: Aarthie, Sergeeva Maria (Kaz), Huang Qian (Chn), Nguyen Thi Thanh An (Vie) and Levushkina. All of them have theoretical chances depending upon various combinations of results.

After Tuesday's round, Vijayalakshmi and Nisha Mohota are to be taken as confirmed qualification and they will join zonal champion Pallavi Shah and World junior girls champion Koneru Humpy. Swati Ghate, who has very good practical chances, and Aarthie Ramaswamy could be the other two Indians to join the above four in the flight to Moscow.

Vijayalakshmi played top class chess on Tuesday to qualify. She is the top seed and was expected to do this. Nisha's success comes as a major surprise since she even failed to qualify from the women's `B' to the National Women's `A' recently.

Spectators were few on this wet and rainy morning but Mr. N. Srinivasan, vice chairman and managing director, India Cements Ltd., the title sponsor, was seen keenly watching the Vijayalakshmi versus Aarthie Ramaswamy encounter.

The top board game between Li Ruofan and Wang Yu lasted just two minutes with a short six move draw being agreed by the players. While the result helped Li Ruofan to be in the lead, it helped the second seed Wang Yu to assure herself of a qualification place.

Li, who won the Asian Junior Girls championship at Jaipur in 1997, is half-a-point away from the senior women's title. In the Asian Junior, Li defeated Vijayalakshmi like here but lost to her in the last round and was caught up by Vijayalakshmi on the points table. There Li had a better tie- break.

Vijayalakshmi played a powerful game with the white pieces to score over Aarthie in 39 moves with the white's pieces in a transposed English opening game. White's win was based around a passed-queen pawn, black was squeezed for space until it hurt before losing the queen for a rook and knight.

Aarthie's second defeat in a row puts a question mark over her qualification. She should be questioning herself why she turned down that draw offer in the previous round against Li. She is now has to win her final game to make the Moscow party.

Swati Ghate was too strong for Meenakshi as she won a Vienna game with the white pieces in 27 moves. Meenakshi castled long and faced an attack. White had the liberty to attack on both sides of the board and Meenakshi lost playing poorly. ``I was good in the opening,'' Meenakshi claimed. But Swati had an easy win when the open queen knight file was used to checkmate the black king. About her chances of making qualifying, Swati Ghate said, ``I should not lose tomorrow.''

Nguyen crushes Huang Qian

Nguyen Thi Thanh An of Vietnam scored a crushing methodical 37- move triumph over Huang Qian of China with the white pieces from a King's Indian defence. Huang Qian who was defeated, now has one more chance to make the qualifying score of seven points. Both players are on six points.

Nisha Mohota defended and counterattacked in time to register a valuable full point in 36 moves with the black pieces from a Sicilian defence, Scheveningen variation. Nisha was threatening to mate or win a rook when Yu Ting of China resigned. Nisha said white's pawn sacrifice on move 31 was a mistake by her opponent which turned the tide.

Sergeeva Maria of Kazakhstan took plenty of risk to down WGM Mekhri Geldeyeva of Turkmenistan in 57 moves from a Scandinavian defence. Sergeeva now has qualifying chances having taken her score to six points.

Elena Levushkina accepted the pawn sacrifices from black to score a defensive 65-move victory over Uzbek compatriot Anjela Khegay. Levushkina has six points and faces Vijayalakshmi in the final round.

Organisers confirmed that information on title norms would be made on Wednesday. Unofficially, it is learnt that none of the Indians have completed any title norms till the penultimate round.

The results (10th round): Li Ruofan (Chn) 8 drew with Wang Yu (Chn) 7, S. Vijayalakshmi (Ind) 7.5 bt Aarthie Ramaswamy (Ind) 6, Swati Ghate (Ind) 7 bt S. Meenakshi (Ind) 5, Nguyen Thi Thanh An (Vie) 6 bt Huang Qian (Chn) 6, Yu Ting (Chn) 5 lost to Nisha Mohota (Ind) 7, Sergeeva Maria (Kaz) 6 bt Mekhri Geldeyeva (Trk) 5, Elena Levushkina (Uzb) 6 bt Anjela Khegay (Uzb) 4.5, Zhang Jilin (Chn) 4.5 lost to Zhao Xue (Chn) 5.5, M. Kasturi (Ind) 5 drew with Le Kieu Thien Kim (Vie) 5, Iroda Khamrakulova (Uzb) 5.5 bt Dronavalli Harika (Ind) 4.5, Rani Hamid (Ban) 4.5 drew with Anupama Gokhale (Ind) 4.5, Zakia Sultana (Ban) 4.5 bt Gu Xiaobing (Chn) 3.5, Saheli Barua (Ind) 4 drew with Afroza Khanam Bably (Ban), Nazrana Khan (Ban) 3.5 lost to Bhagyashree Thipsay (Ind) 4.5, Y. Prathiba (Ind) 4 bt Anupama Konara (Sri) 3, Vineetha Wijesuriya (Sri) 4-bye.

Important final round pairings: Li Ruofan (Chn) 8 vs. Swati Ghate (Ind) 7, Levushkina (Uzb) 6 vs. Vijayalakshmi (Ind) 7.5, Wang Yu (Chn) 7 vs. Nguyen Thi Thanh An (Vie) 6, Nisha Mohota (Ind) 7 Zhao Xue (Chn) 5.5, Huang Qian (Chn) 6 vs. Sergeeva Maria (Kaz) 6, Aarthie Ramaswamy (Ind) 6 vs. Iroda Khamrakulova (Uzb) 5.5.

The moves: WGM S. Vijayalakshmi-IWM Aarthie Ramaswamy, round ten, English opening, A04: 1.Nf3 d6 2.g3 g6 3.Bg2 Bg7 4.0- 0 e5 5.c4 f5 6.Nc3 Nf6 7.d4 e4 8.Ne1 0-0 9.f3 exf3 10.exf3 Kh8 11.Nc2 d5 12.b3 Nc6 13.Re1 dxc4 14.bxc4 Re8 15.Be3 Na5 16.Qd3 c6 17.Rad1 Be6 18.d5 Bf7 19.f4 Qd7 20.Bd4 Kg8 21.Be5 Rac8 22.Ne3 Red8 23.Qb1 Qe8 24.Bxf6 Bxf6 25.Ng4 Qxe1+ 26.Rxe1 Bxc3 27.Nh6+ Kf8 28.Nxf7 Kxf7 29.Rd1 Bf6 30.d6 b6 31.Qd3 Nb7 32.d7 Rc7 33.Bxc6 Nc5 34.Qd5+ Kg7 35.Qd6 Na6 36.Bb5 Rc5 37.Bxa6 Kf7 38.Bb7 Kg7 39.Re1 1-0.

Yu Ting-IWM Nisha Mohota, round ten, Sicilian Scheveningen, B87: 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bc4 e6 7.Bb3 b5 8.0-0 Be7 9.Qf3 Qc7 10.Qg3 Nc6 11.Nxc6 Qxc6 12.f3 0-0 13.Bh6 Ne8 14.Kh1 Kh8 15.Bg5 Bxg5 16.Qxg5 Nf6 17.Rfd1 Bb7 18.Rd4 Qc5 19.Qd2 Rfd8 20.Rd1 Ne8 21.f4 Rdc8 22.Qe2 Rc7 23.a3 Rac8 24.f5 exf5 25.Nd5 Bxd5 26.Rxd5 Qa7 27.exf5 Re7 28.Qd2 Re4 29.Rf1 Qe7 30.Kg1 Rc5 31.f6 gxf6 32.h3 Re2 33.Qd3 Nc7 34.Rxd6 Rg5 35.Rf2 Re1+ 36.Kh2 Qe5+ 0-1.

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