Sport - Chess   

Mary heads list of female casualties

By P. K. Ajith Kumar

Vietnam's Luong Nhat Linh (left) and Mary Ann Gomes of India fighting it out in an opening round encounter in the under-14 girls' section of the Asian Youth chess championship at Kozhikode on Saturday. — Photo: Ramesh Kurup

KOZHIKODE JUNE 7. It's so far been a sojourn of mixed emotions for Mary Ann Gomes in this Northern Kerala city.

After coming here in the last week of May, she won the National sub-junior championship, but broke down after beating her freind Soumya Swaminathan in the final round, and then she failed to meet the qualification mark from the National women's `B' championship, during the closing ceremony of which she was in tears again, having lost her purse.

Now, a day later, in the opening round of the Asian Youth chess championship at Hotel Asma Tower on Saturday, Mary, the top seed in the girls' under-14 section, suffered a setback, going down to Luong Nhat Lin of Vietnam. She paid the penalty for taking too much time over her moves.

She, however, wasn't the only seed in her section to taste defeat. Third seed Soumya Swaminathan — yes, Mary's friend — was beaten by compatriot Pallavi Maiya and fifth seed N. Raghavi went down to G. Prateeka. Sixth seed M. Rajadarshini was defeated by R. Rajasurya, while fourth seed Saheli Nath was held to a draw by Pham Bich Ngoc of Vietnam.

In the other sections though, things went on the expected lines, more or less. The boys' under-14 top seed Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son of Vietnam had no trouble in taking the full point off G. Balachandar of the host. But the second G. Rohit did face a few problems early on from fellow-Indian P. Karthikeyan before winning easily in the end. There were fluent victories for seeds third and fourth, Abhijeet Gupta and Rahul Sangma.

Among the day's winners for India in the lower age-groups were Parimarjan Negi (boys' under-10), Dhyani Dave and P.K. Jayasree (girls' under-12) and Pranali Patil and Gudnala Madanasri (girls' under-10). Y. Sandeep, the third seed in the boys' under-12, had to share the point with Amogh Kamli.

Earlier, it was decided at the players' meeting that the tournament would be played over seven rounds. That means there will be one round each every day, much to the relief of the young participants.

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