Second promises fireworks and upsets

Pratibha played the line and forced Viji to play the h6. This writer suggested repeating Re8 at the risk of White opting for a draw, the idea being to prevent loss of a tempo and not allowing white to use the time to run his queen’s knight to g3. Otherwise, black should have played h6 at move 10 itself. The text then ran 12.. h6 13 Nbd2 Re8 14 Nf1 Bf8. 15.Ng3 ..

As a result the odyssey of White’s Queen knight to g3 is complete. Repeating 12.. Re8, assuming that white would not have preferred a draw so early would have led to 13.Nbd2 Bf8 and if 14. Nf1 black would have a chance to force the issue on the queen’s side, thus not allowing the white knight to reach g3 as white would be forced to attend to the queenside threat. And if 14. a4 then, well, the continuation would anyway positionwise, at the very least, be equal to both sides.

Allowing the bishop to survive on b3 would, of course, require extremely careful and calculated positional moves on the part of black. Incidentally, Karpov, playing black, won that particular game against Kasparov.

Aarthie Ramaswamy’s Sicilian against Swati Ghate was one of the best played in tournaments of this level. GMs might pick holes, but the text as it stands shows that Swati’s game seemed to suffer from schizophrenia. There was one personality operating on the queen’s side and another on the king’s side with both personalities refusing to recognise each other.

In contrast, Aarthie’s co-ordination between the queen’s side and the king’s side was remarkable. In reality, she looked to have no `sides’. Black’s whole board had a rare unity of purpose.

The withdrawal of the knight from c6 to d2, the rook’s Odyssey from a1 to g3, the movement of the pawns to finally unleash the bishop posted on h7, the exchange of the minor pieces for rook, et al the fluidity of black’s co-ordinated movements was Sicilian poetry. Swati’s queenside prose attack had no chance whatsoever.

Against this, look at what happened to Safira’s Sicilian. Could Safira save the game say after white moves 29. e5? Black’s text response is dxe5. Instead what if d5 is played? One of the lines flowing from this move would be: 30. c3 bxc3 31. bxc3 Rab8 32. c4 Ne7 33. Rb1 Qc7 34. Qf6+ Kg8 35 Rxb8. Though the later continuation loses a knight for black, there are chances of eliciting a draw. The line is certainly much better than the text 29.e5. It looks as if she erred on the side of extra caution allowing Bhagyashree to marshal her forces for a mating sequence on the queen’s side.

The tournament is past the halfway stage with only six rounds remaining. The top four finishers will represent Indian at the Istanbul Chess Olympiad later this year.

At this point the tournament is wide open for at least three spots.

Despite her surprise loss to Pratibha, Viji’s tournament temperament will not allow her to lapse into despondency. With 5.5 points — 1.5 ahead of her nearest rivals, she is still a favourite for the first spot. Before the year is out we might well see her become he first Woman International Grandmaster of India.

Swati, with 3.5 points, on the other hand, might find the going extremely tough. Though she might easily overcome the challenge of Neha Singh and Baisakhi Das, given her current string of losses and consequent erosion of confidence, her remaining games with Anupama Gokhale, Saheli Dhar-Barua and Meenakshi will prove to be crucial.

The last three now share the second spot with four points each. Swati, Bhagyashree, Pallavi Shah, Sujatha S and Safira with 3.5 points each share the third spot. Aarthie has 2.5 points and Neha 1.5 with three draws.

Last year, Bhagyashree edged out Anupama in a hard fought battle. She has two easy games against Baisakhi and Neha. Assuming she wins both, her games with Swati and Bhagyashree will prove to be crucial.

Pallavi is also making a strong re-entry bid into the Indian team. Her win over Sujatha must give her confidence to play the rest of the games. Barring the last round against Baisakhi, all the rest are really tough rounds.

Seeing that Safira and Swati are not about to give up their places easily, the second half of the tournament is bound to see a lot of fireworks and — upsets.