Sport - Chess   

Eesha, Swati share lead

By Rakesh Rao

PUNE SEPT. 6. Eesha Karavade and Swati Mohota stood tall by after scoring victories in contrasting styles to share the lead after eighth rounds of the National women's `B' chess championship here on Friday.

These diminutive girls won both their matches against challengers from Tamil Nadu to reach seven points. With it, Eesha and Swati took a giant leap towards qualifying for the next National `A' championship. The top 10 finishers from this 11-round contest qualify for the premier event.

On an eventful day, the eighth seeded Eesha took care of overnight leader Y. Pratibha in the seventh round and then prevailed over M. Saimeera Ravi with equal ease in the eighth.

Swati, seeded 27th, continued her dream run by two extremely lucky wins. She gained decisively when M. Safira Shanaz blundered a knight in time-pressure in the seventh round. In the evening, it was the turn of J.E. Kavitha to gift a point to Swati. In the dying moments of this match, Swati benefited from a seemingly faulty exchange of queens by Kavitha and, despite being short of time, just about made it.

Pratibha failed to recover from her morning's loss to Eesha and surprisingly got herself checkmated by Haryana's Anuradha Beniwal in just 30 moves of French Defence. Anuradha, who got past Assam's Purabi Singha in the seventh round, now has 6.5 points. She trails the leaders by half-a-point and has the company of D. Harika, who defeated N. Vinuthna and Anupama Gokhale on this day.

Safira, looking to retain her place in the National `A', had mixed luck. After losing to Swati, she kept her cool in the match against S. Nabeela Farheen and used her experience to win despite the early loss of a pawn.

Top seeded Nisha Mohota continued to struggle with her time-management. Though she defeated P. Sudha with expected ease, she laboured to a draw against M. Rajdarshini and reached 5.5 points. Perhaps, Nisha needs a share of her younger sister Swati's luck in the rounds to follow in order to be among the top 10 finishers.

Third seed Saheli had her best day of the championship. She won both her matches--against Sanjana Raj and Ketki Kulkarni--and moved to five points. Asian junior champion Tania Sachdev, seeded 11th, also collected maximum points on this day at dismissing K. Jennitha Anto and E. Sheena.

The results: eighth round: Eesha Karavade (7) bt M. Saimeera Ravi (6); Swati Mohota (7) bt J. E. Kavitha (6); Anuradha Beniwal (6.5) bt Y. Pratibha (5.5); D. Harika (6) bt Anupama Gokhale (5); Nebeela Farheen (5) lost to M. Safira Shanaz (6); Mahima Raj Mohan (5.5) drew with Soumya Swaminathan (5.5); Anuprita Patil (5.5) drew with Madhuri Patil (5.5); Mary Ann Gomes (5.5) drew with Krutika Nadig (5.5); Sneha Ghatpande (5) lost to Purabi Singha (6); M. Rajdarshini (5) drew with Nisha Mohota (5); Sheena E. (4.5) lost to Tania Sachdev (5.5); Sreeparna Chakraborty (5) drew with S. Banupriya (5); Baisakhi Das (4.5) lost to M. R. Sangeetha (5.5); N. Vinuthna (5.5) bt Deepali Arvandekar (4.5); Snehal Mahajan (4.5) lost to H. Nilavoli (5.5); N. Raghavi (4.5) lost to Dolan Champa Bose (5.5); Pooja Rathod (5) drew with Ramya Krishna Inapuri (5); Ketki Kulkarni (4) lost to Saheli Dhar-Barua (5); M. Kasturi (5) bt Kiran Monisha Mohanty (4); K. Chandra Hawsa (5) bt M. Priyadarshini (4); P. Laxmi Sahiti (4.5) drew with Mrunalini-Kunte Aurangabadkar (4.5); P. Priya (4.5) drew with Alka Das (4.5); Bhakti Kulkarni (5) bt Ashwini Kulkarni (4); C.V. Rajalakshmi (5) bt Priyanka Vora (4); Jayashree Sankpal (5) bt R. Hemalatha (4); Amruta Mokal (5) bt Saba Mhate (4); Junmoni Gogoi (4) lost to Supriya Maji (5); S.R. Radha (3.5) lost to Aparna Dhatrak (4.5); Pushpalata Mangal (4) drew with Mohita Agarwal (4); Devangi Patankar (4.5) bt Shahjabeen (3.5).

Seventh round: Pratibha lost to Eesha; Safira lost to Swati; Anuprita lost to Saimeera; Purabi lost to Anuradha; Harika bt Vinuthna; Kavitha bt Raghavi; Deepali drew with Nabeela; Dolan drew with Snehal; Rajalaskhmi lost to Mahima; Sangeetha drew with Sreeparna; Rajdarshini drew with Baisakhi; Alka lost to Mary; Supriya lost to Sneha; Anupama bt Kiran; Nilavoli drew with Sheena; Krutika bt Chandra Hawsa; Madhuri bt Bhakti; Soumya bt Kasturi; Aparna lost to Pooja; Banupriya bt Pushpalata; Nisha bt P. Sudha; Ramya bt Radha; Tania bt Jennitha; Sahiti bt Parveen Afsha; Mohita drew with Devengi; Mrunalini bt Mitali Patil; Saheli bt Sanjana Raj; Junmoni bt S. Aneeqha Tahseen; Nitumoni Gogoi lost to Saba; Dhara Gupta lost to Jayashree Sankpal.

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