Swati tames Humpy, Aarthie loses again

Following them are Sayed Mohammed, Maghami, Satyapragyan and Sunderrajan Kidambi with six points each.

Swati, who got into top gear little late, dashed on the scene with a good victory over Ting on Thursday, performed very well on Friday to shock Humpy. Playing with white pieces, Swati attacked with Caro Kann Flour Variations but lost two pawns to set up a fiery attack and obtain a single pawn in return on the 23rd move. Humpy sacrificed her rook and tried for perpetual checks but Swati, with a Elo rating of 2246, handled the situation cleverly and took the game in the 43rd move.

Later, a jubilant Swati said: “Humpy tried to attack without properly developing her pieces and that proved her wrong doing”.

Ting seems to be running out of steam as she lost to a lowly-rated Vietnam girl Chauthi Ngoc Giao.

The game was played in Kings Indian Defence Classical Variation and was fully a one-sided affair. Ting managed to push her knight to Giao’s camp on `g2′ but that move did not click. On the other hand, Giao won a pawn on `a7′ followed by exchanged Ting’s light square bishop for knight. Afterwards, it turned out to be a one-sided game. IWM Aarthie Ramaswamy is struggling to find her form and in the process she lost again on Friday. This time to compatriot Y Pratibha. In the boys’ top board clash between Harikrishna and Al Sayed started with a Kings Indian Defence `g3′ system. on the 14th move, black got a central break and opened `e’ file for operation. Then both the players exchanged all pieces but for one minor piece. And on 39th move, both agreed to sign a peace treaty.

Results (Round IX)

Boys: P Harikrishna (6.5 pts) drew Al Syed Mohammed (6), Tejas Bakre (6.5) drew Ghaem Maghami (6), SS Ganguly (6.5) bt John Paul Gomez (5), S Satyapragyan (6) drew S Kidambi (6), Enamul Hossain (5) drew Neelotpal Das (5), Du Shan (5.5) bt Prathmesh Mokal (4.5), Said Rakhimbekov (5.5) bt CJ Arvind (4.5), Mark Paragua (5) bt Mahesh Chandran (4), Vikramaditya Kamble (5) bt Valay Parikh (4), Annaberdiev Meillis (4.5) bt M Satyajit (3.5), Fillipov Anton (4.5) bt Arjun Tiwari (3.5), Soumayarajan Mishra (4) bt Taher Mulla (2.5), Mathew Sonter (3.5) drew PMAB Athukatala (2.5), Akshay Kore (3.5) bt Himanshu Kumar (2).

Girls: Swati Ghate (6.5) bt K Humpy (6.5), Chauthi Ngoc Giao (5) bt Yu Ting (6), P Sivakami (3.5) bt S Meenakshi (5), Nisha Mohota (5.5) bt Beverly Mendoza (5), Y Pratibha (4.5) bt Aarthie Ramaswamy (4.5), Elena Levushkina (5.5) bt Anupama Konara (2), JE Kavita (5) bt Madina Duisenova (3.5), Tania Sachdev (4.5) bt Feroza Haque (5).