Viji outplays Anupama, Bhagyashree draws first blood

KALYAN, JUNE 9: It was the day of the Sicilian at Hotel Raja on Friday. Four of the six games played in the third round of the Women's Nat...

KALYAN, JUNE 9: It was the day of the Sicilian at Hotel Raja on Friday. Four of the six games played in the third round of the Women’s National A Chess Championship were various forms of the black’s reply c5 to the white opening of e4. Apart from Bhagyashree the other game that didn’t go the Sicilian way was the one played by Viji who opted for the Indian defence.

On the top board, Saheli Dhar Barua faced Aarthie Ramaswamy’s Sicilian defence that took a curious route via the Nc6 Pelikan variation and through black’s 6. e5 Boleslavsky variation landed with white’s reply 7. Nf3 into theKing’s Knight variation. The game went along known lines till Saheli stepped out of the book with 9. h3. At move 20 black was ahead with a pawn in material, only to return to even standings by move 23 when white equalises with 23. Nxc4. Both players continued playing an average game and below par from what would have been expected of them. By move 39 it was clear that Saheli had the edge and began consolidating the approaching win. The gameeventually ended after 50 moves with black conceding defeat.

On the contrary, Baisakhi Das failed to address the Sicilian (Nf6 variation) defence put by intrepid Shahnaz Safira — and paid the penalty for a bad opening and had to concede defeat in 26 moves. While Baisakhi has to still open her account, Safira has 2 points from the three outings.

S Sujatha played the Sicilian well against Neha Singh and was able to extract a clear win in 40 moves. Swati Ghate playing Pallavi Shah confronted the other Sicilian. Neither the cold nor the cough Swati was sufferingfrom affected her mental powers. Pallavi muffed the opening line after the exchange of the e pawn. After that Swati simply built up her game to a slight material advantage in that she had the Queen and bishop to Pallavi’s two rooks- but with better position.

Deft handling of the centre and right flank pawns saw Pallavi’s defence crumble and Pallavi resigned after 47 moves.

Viji replied with the Indian defence to five times national champ Anupama Gokhale and confronted the Torre Attack. The white strategy is to prepare a King side attack along the lines of Colle. Viji stepped out of the book immediately to challenge the opening of the White Bishop’s light square diagonal. Viji faced a tough middle game but had the game under control by the 31st move. Outplayed, Anupama resigned on her 44th move.

The first win, however, of the day was recorded when International Woman Master Bhagyashree Thipsay, who made short work of Y Pratibha after she quietly launched the Anderssen attack in the Spanish Opening ofthe Ruy Lopez reaching a mate sequence in the 30th move. Faced with a mate in three, Pratibha preferred to shake hands.

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It looked as if Pratibha was in two minds. It is quite difficult to see how she could not anticipate what was happening on the King’s side after Bhagyashree posted her queenside rook to c3. Pratibha was looking to create apassed pawn on the ‘a’ file and had deployed the Bishop of the light squares to oversee a futile, almost an impossible odyssey. The middle play exchanges were even but with each exchange black’s position progressively weakened.

Bhagyashree must have been planning the mate sequence the moment the black pawn at g7 was forced to move to f6 in an exchange 13. Nxf6 gxf6. The successful doubling of white’s rooks on the empty g’ file without seriouschallenge — and indeed there was no challenge to prevent that happening — said it all: the writing was on the wall. It was the triumph of experience over one, having lost the initiative in the opening, was continually plagued with the Hamletian dilemma.

Game of the Day: White:Bhagyashree Thipsay, Elo points: 2247
Black:Y Pratibha, Elo points: 2091
Ruy Lopez (Anderssen Attack)
1. e4 e5 2.Nf3 (the best in this opening, but f4 is also fine) Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 (A move popularised by Paul Morphy) 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. d3 (the Anderssen attack) Bc5 6. O-O d6 7. c3 0-0 8. Bg5 Bg4. 9. Nbd2 Qe7 10. Bxc6 bxc6 11. Qa4 Qd7 12. d4 exd4 13. Nxf6 gxf6 14. cxd4 Bb6 15. Rac1 c5 16. Qxd7 Bxd7 17. Nc4 Rfe8 18. Rfe1 Bb5 19. d5 a5 (slightly better is f5) 20. Nh4 a4 21. Nxb6 cxb6 22. Nf5 Rad8 23. Rc3 Ba6 (futile aspirations) 24. Rg3+ Kh8 (the beginning of the end) 25. Nh6 Re7 26. f4 Bc4 (slightly better is Bc8) 27. Ree3 Bxa2 28. f5? b5??? (It is in reply to this that black missed the bus with the poor b5. Black could have tried, perhaps, Bb3, with some advantage. Black’s text move invite’s a forced mate opportunity for white.) 29. Rg4 (White plans mate in 5) Rf8 30. Reg3 (White has a mate in two) Ree8 (what for? Black should have already resigned.) Ree8 31. Rg8+ Black Resigns.

Results Round Three (points in brackets): Saheli Dhar (2) bt Aarthie Ramaswamy, Baisakhi Das (0) lost to Safira Shahnaz (2), Anupama Gokhale (1) lost to S Vijayalakshmi (2.5), Neha Singh (0) lost to S Sujatha (2.5), Swati Ghate (2.5) bt Pallavi Shah (1.5), Bhagyashree Thipsay (1) bt Y Pratibha (1.5), S Meenakshi Bye.