Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Mumbai, June 15: Defending champion and IWM S Vijayalakshmi of Indian Airlines was leading the pack despite her second loss while IWM Saheli Dhar Barua of Railways was in the second spot at the end of the eighth round of the 26th women’s National `A’ chess championship being played at Kalyan, on Thursday.
Vijayalakshmi, who was upset in the seventh round by Y Prathiba, opened with her favourite English opening and chose an unorthodox plan of developing her knight in the centre and achieved near equality but kept her king in the centre.
Vijayalakshmi broke through the centre to exploit black’s king position. However, she could not find the best moves in the position and Pallavi consolidated her position and traded her ineffective pieces for Vijayalakshmi’s active pieces.
Pallavi maintained a slight advantage in the end game due to being better placed. She did not let the initiative slip out of her hands and gained a pawn on the queenside. After that it was just the matter of technique for Pallavi who forced her rival to resigned on the 66th move in a hopeless position.
Baisakhi Das opened her account with an exciting win. Anupama opened with the king’s Indian defence with black pieces to which Das replied with the Saemisch variation.
Anupama sacrificed a pawn in the opening to creat threats along the h8-a1 diagonal. Das, who accepted the pawn, had to return the material soon to defend against the oncoming threats.
Anupama exchanged the queen and tried to create some complications by sacrificing a pawn to bring out white’s king, which proved faulty and she could not put up the best defence as the time trouble was fast approaching.
Das’s pair of passed pawns proved fatal and Anupama had to give up the struggle in the 48th move.
Points position after 8th-round: 1. Vijayalakshmi (5.5), 2. Saheli Dhar Barua (5), 3. Safira Shehnaz, Pallavi Shah and S Meenakshi (4.5 each), 4. B Thipsay, A Gokhale, Swathi Ghate (4 each), 5. S Sujatha (3.5), 6. R Aarthi and Y Prathiba (3 each), 7. Neha Singh (1.5), 8. Baisakhi Das (1).
