The penultimate day of the 47th National B Chess seemed to command all the twist as the leadership was redrawn with the WGM Mary Ann Gomes of Bengal surprising the leader of the last five rounds IM Deep Sengupta of Petroleum in the 12th round on Sunday.
The win helped Mary Ann surge into the lead with 9.5 points and share the top spot with defending champion B. Adhiban, who found his winning touch after two rounds of barren draws. The final round on Monday will decide the champion when the one time Asian Junior champion Mary Ann takes on the
World under-16 champion Adhiban on the top board.
Deep, who had a splendid run in the tournament till he faltered against Himanshu Sharma of Haryana in the 11th round yesterday, failed to emerge from the blues against Mary Ann, who seemed determined to
get closer to realising her first open National title. After the loss Deep shared the second spot with Himanshu Sharma and M.S. Thejkuar with 9 point each.
Playing with white Mary Ann opened on the queen side in an English Opening and soon obtained space advantage on the wing. She forced Deep into an exchange of rook for knight on the 40th move after which the latter’s game slowly went to pieces.
Second seeded Adhiban of Petroleum had little difficulty against T. Abhay of Tamil Nadu. Adhiban played with confidence and launched a spirited kingside attack with his rook and minor pieces to force a
mating net around his opponent’s king.
Important results (round 12):
Mary Ann Gomes (Ben) 9.5 bt Deep Sengupta (PSPB) 9;
B. Adhiban (PSBP) 9.5 bt T Abhay (TN) 8.5;
P.D.S Girinath (RSPB) 8.5 drew with Himanshu Sharma (Har) 9;
M.S. Thejkumar (RSPB) 9 bt Somak Palit (Ben) 8;
Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury (RSPB) 8.5 drew with Swapnil Dhopade (Mah) 8.5;
Narayanan Srinath (TN) 8.5 drew with B.T. Muralikrishnan (RSPB) 8.5;
K Priyadarshan (TN) 8.5 bt Matta Vinay Kumar (AB) 8:
Vidit Gujarathi (Mah) 8 drew with Syed Anwar Shazuli (RSPB) 8;
P Shyam Nikhil (TN) 8 drew with R Arun Kartik (TN) 8;
Rahul Sangma (Del) 7.5 lost to D.P. Singh (RSPB) 8.5;
V. Saravanan (PSPB) 8 drew with Sagar Shah (Mah) 8;
P. Maheswaran (TN) 8 drew with Puneet Jaiswal (RSPB) 8;
Joydeep Dutta (Ben) 8 drew with V. Koshy (TN) 8;
Padmini Rout (ORI) 8.5 bt R Bhuvanesh Ramnath (TN) 7.5;
Amardeep Bartakke (Mah) 7.5 lost to RBalasubramaniam (8.5);
Arvind Shastry (8.5) bt Himal Gusain (Chd) 7.5.
