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Journalism of Courage
TENHIPALAM, May 17: Drawn games on the first and second boards saw young West Bengal player Swati Mohota, who scored a technical victory over third seed Safira Shahnaz of Tamil Nadu, share lead with her elder sister Nisha Mohota with five points each at the end of the sixth round of the 11th National Junior Under-20 Girls Chess Championship here at the Calicut University Seminar Complex here today.
After taking the g’ file pawn on move 22 and going for a queen sacrifice on the 31st, the players ended up with bishops of opposite squares. Nisha’s overcautious approach left her pawns stranded and she was forced to part with the bishop to prevent queening of Vijayalakshmi’s b’ file pawn.Nisha had three pawns, but one of them was well away from the other two and Vijayalakshmi’s white square bishop was equal to the occasion. It was too late for Nisha to find ways to advance her pawns in the wake of the rook exchange and she asked for the draw after a marathon 77 moves. Vijayalakshmi readily agreed to the offer in a game that lasted six-and-a-quarter hours.Nivedita Sagade of Maharashtra accounted for a pawn with a knight move which was backed by the queen on the 20th move against Swati Ghate who played Nimzo Indian defence. Nivedita had laid the spadework to claim that pawn in an intelligent manner.
But on the 31st move, Nivedita suffered a setback as she lost the bishop when she chose the queen to attack the black knight instead of the pawn. That led to a drawish position. In the end black’s position was a rook with two pawns against a rook with three pawns of white. The draw came up after 60 moves.Pallavi Shah of Maharashtra, playing Kings Indian defence, recorded an easy victory over S Meenakshi of AICF. Meenakshi lost a piece on the 34th move. Pallavi attacked the kingside. After the exchange of pieces, Meenakshi resigned after 38 moves.Important results: Nisha Mohota (WB) 5 drew S Vijayalakshmi (TN) 4.5, Nivedita Sagade (Mah) 4.5 drew Swati Ghate (Mah) 4.5, Safira Shahnaz (TN) 4 lost to Swati Mohota (WB) 5, Aarthie Ramasamy (TN) 4.5 bt N Sandhya (Ker) 3.5, S Meenakshi (AICF) 3 lost to Pallavi Shah (Mah) 4.5, B Anuradha (WB) 3 lost to M Sai Meera (IB) 4, Sreeparna Chakraborty (WB) 3 lost to Sasinas Haritha (Ker) 4, Humaira Qamar (AP) 3 lost to M R Sangeetha (TN) 4, Aswini Pachapurkar (Mah) 3.5 bt Zeal Mehta (Guj) 2.5, P R Rashmee (Kar) 2.5 lost to S Sujatha (TN) 3.5, Aswini Kulkarni (Mah) 3.5 bt G Ramyashree (Kar) 2.5, Bhavana Parekh (Raj) 2 lost to Y Prathiba (TN) 3.5, Shantha (TN) 2 lost to P L Sivakami (TN) 2.
