Kiran Mohanty defeats Eesha Karavade

Kiran Monisha Mohanty pulled off an upset win over WGM Eesha Karavde while Swati Ghate beat Nisha Mohota to join Tania Sachdev and Dronavalli Harika in lead at the end of the 6^th round of the 34th Women’s National A Chess Championship organised by Symbiosis Spa Chess School at Symbiosis Center for Health Care Campus, Range Hills Road, Kirkee, Pune.

Asian Individual Women’s Champion Tania and Asian Zonal Women’s Champion Harika probably showed mutual respect and employed the ‘draw with the best and beat the rest’ theory when they agreed to share the point after just 8 moves at the halfway stage of the tournament. But the same theory did not work for Pune’s WGM Eesha Karavade who after drawing her games against WGMs in the last three consecutive rounds lost to a lower seeded rival Kiran Mohanty. Mohanty has so far has had a very impressive run. She also beat WGM Swati Ghate in the third round. Today in a Spanish Anti-Marshal variation Eesha playing Black sacrificed a pawn which according to Mohanty was not the right thing to do. Kiran maneuvered her pieces to attacking positions and when the moment was right struck some deadly blows which left Eesha with no options but to resign. WGM Nisha Mohota blundered a pawn against Swati Ghate and after that Swati made no mistake to bring home the full point.

Padmini Rout erred from the White side of the Sicilian Rauzer variation against WGM Aarthie Ramaswamy. According to Aarthie Padmini’s 18^th move Bd3 was not such a good try for advantage while her 21^st move was a gross blunder. Aarthie sacrificed material and took great advantage of Padmini’s exposed King position to win a Queen and soon the game. WGM Mary Ann Gomes beat Sai Meera after both players made a lot of errors in mutual time trouble. WIM Soumya Swaminathan made good use of the opposite coloured Bishops position on the board to create undefendable mating threats and win the game against Nimmy George.

Pune’s Amruta Mokal drew with Ch. Divyashri while Anuprita Patil held Pon. Krithika to a draw.

Games

Results:Round6

Tania Sachdev 4.5 drew with Harika Dronavalli 4.5;
Nisha Mohota 3.5 lost to Swati Ghate 4.5;
Kiran Manisha Mohanty 4.5 beat Eesha Karavade 3.5;
Padmini Rout 3 lost to Ramaswamy Aarthie 4;
Mary Ann Gomes 4 beat Sai Meera Ravi 3;
Nimmy George 3 lost to Soumya Swaminathan 4;
Divyasri Ch 3 drew with Amruta Mokal 3;
Pon. Krithika 3 drew with Anuprita Patil 3;
Rucha Pujari 2.5 lost to P Priya 3.5;
S Nabeela Farheen 3 beat R Preethi 2;
M R Sangeetha 2 lost to S Harini 3;
Uthra P 2 drew with Dhyani Dave 2;
Savetha C H 1 lost to Swati Mohota 2;
S Athirai 2 beat Baisakhi Das 1

34th Women’s National A Chess Championship of India

08.11.2007 – This event sees the cream of Indian women's chess battling it out in Puna. Top seed Dronavalli Harika, rated 2480, is the overall number 15 player in the country, Nisha Mohota, 2416, and Tania Sachdev, 2413 follow close behind. The three top players will represent India at the next Olympiad. Pictorial report

34th Women’s National A Chess Championship of India

This event is being held from November 4th to 15th 2007. The event is organised by Symbiosis Spa Chess School at Symbiosis Center for Health Care Campus in Pune, India, with technical assistance being provided by Buddhibal Kreeda Trust.

The tournament, which includes the cream of Indian women’s chess among its participants, offers a record prize money of Rs.250,000 (Euro 4,350 or US $6,400). The top three players from this tournament will be selected to represent India at the World Chess Olympiad to be held at Dresden, Germany in 2008, while the top six players will comprise the Indian women’s team for various other international events.

The inaguration function was held under the title theme "Fountain of Innovation"

The seeded players had an easy outing in the first round, the only minor upset being provided by local girl Anuprita Patil who held WGM Mary Ann Gomes to a draw with the white pieces. IM Dronavalli Harika looked in some trouble as she lost a pawn in the middlegame, but her opponent P. Priya made a series of errors, Harika won an exchange and finished it off the game without any further hiccups.

Tania Sachdev, 2413 vs M.R. Sangeetha, 2118 in round one (Sachdev won)

The Women's International Master beat her untitled opponent in this round one game

In the second round two leaders with full score emerged: Dronavalli Harika of Andhra Pradesh and Eesha Karavade of Maharashtra. WGM Tania Sachdev of Indian Airlines played the black side of Sicilian Paulsen opening against Nimmy George. White tried to create attacking threats on the kingside but Tania did well to neutralize those and even won a couple of pawns. But Nimmy had some compensation and in mutual time trouble Tania failed to produce accurate moves and had be content with a draw by giving perpetual checks.

WGM and chess star Tania Sachdev with problems against untitled Nimmy

Top seed IM Dronavalli Harika needed 78 moves to defeat her untitled opponent in round two

After three rounds there are five players in the lead with 2.5 points: Harika, Sachdev, Manisha Kiran, Eesha Karavade and R. Aarthie. The games are being shown live on the official tournament web site.