National under-11 champion Vaishali of Chennai emerged the sole leader posting six straight victories at the end of the sixth round of the Ramco National under-13 girls’ chess championships here on Tuesday.
It took 21 moves for Vaishali to redeem herself from a poor opening with the black pieces. In the minor piece ending, Shiny Das slipped and fixed her pawns on squares of her own bishop. Vaishali advanced her king and pushed white into a zugzwang to win in 62 moves and wrest a one-point lead.
Riya Savant and Tejaswini Sagar won and moved to five points and share the second and third places respectively.
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No clear leader
No clear leader has emerged in the boys’ group after a fighting double round day. Top seed Aravindh Chithambaram was held to a 41-move draw when Visakh repeatedly checked the white king with his knight to share the point. Aravindh had an extra pawn but could not avoid the repetition.
Sai Vishwesh and Ritviz Parab drew in 28 insipid moves with not a single pawn captured. Ritviz, Aravindh and Visakh are sharing the lead with 5.5 points each.
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In the recent past, players required permission to offer or accept draws from the arbiter concerned if they had not completed 30 moves. This spectator-friendly recommendation of FIDE is not applied in this event.
I.G. Parmar of Gujarat is the chief arbiter here.
Earlier, in the morning, Vaishali displayed her class to checkmate Bakshi in 28 moves after multiple piece sacrifices. Other overnight joint leader Shiny Das drew with lower-ranked Meera in just 22 moves with almost all pieces still on the board. Among boys, Ritviz was impressive in his 29-move king hunt win over Akash.
The results (sixth round): Boys: Aravindh Chithambaram (TN) 5.5 drew with Visakh (TN) 5.5; C. Sai Vishwesh (TN) 5 drew with Ritviz Parab (Goa) 5.5; Abhimanyu Puranik (Mah) 5 bt A. Abhishek (Ker) 4.5; M. Eashwar (TN) 4 lost to Pranav Vijay (TN) 5; Harsha Bharathakoti (AP) 4.5 drew with Siva Mahadevan (TN) 4.5; V. Karthik (AP) 5 bt P. Iniyan (TN) 4.
Girls: Shiny Das (Tri) 4.5 lost to R. Vaishali (TN) 6; Riya Savant (Goa) 5 bt C. Hajra (WB) 4; Bakshi Rutuja (Mah) 4.5 drew with Bhagya Jayesh (Ker) 4.5; H.R. Manasa (Kar) 4 lost to Tejaswini Sagar (Mah) 5; C.R. Varsha (TN) 4.5 drew with Anigani Kavya (AP) 4.5; D. Meera (TN) 4.5 drew with Bidhar Rutumbara (Odi) 4.5.