It was an eventful round seven in the National under-13 chess championship with the sole leaders in girls' Lasya of Andhra Pradesh and boys' Girish Koushik of Mysore sections facing defeats.
Rutuja Bakshi of Maharashtra overcame defending champion Lasya to become the sole leader among girls, while National under-11 champion Aravindh Chithambaram of Madurai shocked top seed Girish at Puducherry on Thursday.
Rutuja, who is trained by her father, leads the girls' section with 6.5 points. She is followed on six points by Monnisha (TN) and Lasya.
In the most exciting game of the round, Rutuja checkmated Lasya in 62 moves. Lasya obtained a big space advantage and then gave up the advantage. Rutuja attacked through the queen-side winning pawns and other material to take the white king out of its citadel before mating it in enemy territory.
Woman FIDE Master Monnisha swung her knight in a wave attacking the white queen, then the rook before going on to destroy the queen-side pawns to win in 65 moves over Meghna of Kerala.
The results (round seven):
Boys: Aravindh Chithambaram (TN) 6 bt Girish Koushik (Kar) 5.5, M. Satvik (Kar) 5 lost to Diptayan Ghosh (WB) 6, R.K. Nayak (Ori) 6 bt S.L. Narayanan (Ker) 5, Akash Iyer (TN) 4.5 lost to M. Siddarth (TN) 6, M.N. Shaikh (Mah) 5.5 bt S. Prasannaa (TN) 4.5, G. Yogesh (TN) 5 drew with Vaibhav Bhat (Mah) 5, V.R. Varman (TN) 5 drew with M. Manu (Ker) 5, Viraj Tamhankar (Mah) 5.5 bt Aditya Chakraborty (WB) 4.5, Praneeth Surya (AP) 5.5 bt B. Kumaran (TN) 4.5, L. Barath (TN) 4.5 lost to Naren Swaminathan (TN) 5.5.
Girls: G. Lasya (AP) 6 lost to Rutuja Bakshi (Mah) 6.5, M. Mahalakshmi (TN) 5.5 drew with Sunyasakta (Ori) 5.5, C.H. Meghna (Ker) 4.5 lost to G.K. Monnisha (TN) 6, V. Shvetha (TN) 5.5 bt Shoumi Mukherjee (WB) 4.5, Vrushali Deodhar (Mah) 5.5 bt Akankhya Kabi (Ori) 4.5, Parnali Dharia (Mah) 4.5 lost to V. Varshini (TN) 5.5, Priyamvada Karmcheti (AP) 4 lost to U. Ashwini (TN) 5, Srija Seshadri (TN) 5 bt Vaishnavi Akhade (Mah) 4, Divya Lakshmi (TN) 4.5 drew with Meenu Priya (TN) 4.5, Sradhanjali Jena (Ori) 4 lost to G. Aarthi (TN) 5.
