Tenth-seeded Swaroopa of Kerala is among the four leaders with maximum four points on Thursday in the National under-9 girls’ chess championship at Puducherry.
Top-seeded Divya Deshmukh, Rakshitta Ravi and Tanisha Boramanikar share the lead with Swaroopa. Swaroopa picked up two pawns early in the middlegame against Dhyana. She managed to promote one of those extra pawns into a queen by sacrificing her rook to win the game in 45 moves.
In the Open category, six players — M. Prabesh, A.R. Abhishek, Sai Pranav, Mendonca, Nikhil Magizhnan and Adarsh Tripathi — are leading with four points.
Important results (round four):
Open: Siddhanth Lohia (Mah) 3 lost to Mendonca (Goa) 4; L.R. Srihari (TN) 3 lost to Adarsh Tripathi (Del) 4; Manthan Datta (Asm) 3 lost to A.R. Abhishek (Ker) 4; Sai Pranav (AP) 4 bt Dikshant Dash (Odi) 3; Aaryan Singh (UP) 3 lost to M Pranesh (TN) 4; Jubin Jimmy (Ker) 3 lost to Nikhil Magizhnan (TN) 4.
Girls: Piya Saxena (Mah) 3 lost to Divya Deshmukh (Mah) 4; Bhagyashree Patil (Mah) 3.5 drew with Rishita Sinha (Asm) 3.5; Rakshitta Ravi (TN) 4 bt Krisha Khandelwal (Mah) 3; Chinnam Vyshnavi (AP) 3 lost to Tanisha Boramanikar (Mah) 4; Swaroopa E.T. (Ker) 4 bt Dhyana Patel (Guj) 3.
