The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Shalmali shocks Kiran

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Tuesday, Dec 09, 2008
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Shalmali shocks Kiran

Arvind Aaron

Chennai: Former National sub-junior girls’ champion Shalmali Gagare of Rahuri, a village near Shirdi in Maharashtra shocked Woman International Master Kiran Manisha Mohanty of Orissa to sail into sole lead at the end of the third round in the Sri Sai Ram Engineering Asian junior chess championships here on Monday.

Shalmali who was little lucky to win, is closely followed by six players on 2.5 points. It includes defending champion WGM Mary Ann Gomes, Kruttika Nadig, Padmini Rout, Bhakti Kulkarni, N. Raghavi and Ch. Divyasri.

Defending a pawn-down ending and fighting with her back to the wall, Shalmali was able to spot a combination on the 43rd move which levelled the material against Kiran Mohanty. Shocked at having missed that move, Kiran lost on time.

Bhakti Kulkari of Goa sacrificed a bishop and had an option of taking a draw or playing for more. She chose for more but went wrong. Raghavi, a medical student from Chennai nursed her king side well to draw in 27 moves.

Mary Ann Gomes of Kolkata won a bishop in a well-timed move in the ending to defeat National sub-junior girls’ champion Bharathi of Chennai. Sivasankari of Chennai lost her way in a level rook and minor pieces ending to bow in defeat to Padmini Rout, the world under-14 girls’ champion from Orissa. Divyasri of Hyderabad played well to hold top seed Kruttika Nadig of Pune.

In the boys’ section, three players, World under-16 champion Baskar Adhiban and IM Ashwin Jayaram both of Chennai together with national junior champion Lalith Babu of Vijayawada are leading with full three points. Nine players share the fourth place on 2.5 points and it includes defending champion Karthikeyan of Chennai. Six rounds remain to be played.

Leading results (round three):

Boys: B. Adhiban 3 bt R. Ashwath 2, Ashwin Jayaram 3 bt Debashis Das 2, Vishnu Prasanna 2.5 drew with P. Karthikeyan 2.5, G.A. Stany 2.5 drew with M. Shyam Sundar 2.5, T.U. Navin Kanna 2 lost to M.R. Lalith Babu 3, K. Priyadharshan 2.5 drew with Vidit Gujrathi 2.5, S.P. Sethuraman 2 drew with Mehar Chinna Reddy 2, Rahul Sangma 2.5 bt Eshwant Dev Kumar 1.5, T. Purushothaman 2.5 bt Akshat Khamparia 1.5, Prasanna Rao 1.5 lost to Pranav Shetty 2.5, R.K. Ranjith 1.5 drew with Deep Sengupta 1.5, D. Yashas 1 lost to S. Nitin 2.

Girls: Kruttika Nadig 2.5 drew with Ch. Divyasri 2.5, Shalmali Gagare 3 bt Kiran Mohanty 2, Bhakti Kulkarni 2.5 drew with N. Raghavi 2.5, R. Bharathi 1.5 lost to Mary Ann Gomes 2.5, P. Sivasankari 1.5 lost to Padmini Rout 2.5, J. Mohana Priya 1.5 drew with R. Preethi 2, R. Aparna 1 lost to P. Uthra 2, Dharani Sree 1.5 drew with S. Harini 1.5.

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