KOZHIKODE, JAN 29: The Mohota sisters, top seed Swati and second seed Nisha of West Bengal, snatched defeats from winning positions, clearing the way for third seed Pallavi Shah's smooth progress after an eventful seventh round of the Premier Grip National Junior Chess Championship at the indoor stadium here today.Pallavi of Maharashtra, with 6.5 points, widened her lead to a full point after her 26-move win in Sicilian Scheveningen over Ashwini Kulkarni of Maharashtra. Manasi Dadarkar of Maharashtra, who conquered Swati and Meenakshi Subburaman of TN, who surprised Nisha, were in the second position with 5.5 points each.
A weak pawn push on move 16 cost Ashwini dearly as Pallavi collected a pawn on the Queenside and then by doubling her rooks in the King-bishop file, threatened to win a second pawn by move 25.
Swati put herself in a strong position by winning a pawn in the Nimzo-Indian defence and then blundered an exchange around the first time control. Manasi with her rooks and queen cleverly founda mating combination around the second time control.
Nisha won a pawn in the Slav Defence against Meenakshi and looked set for a win in the knight and pawn ending. The Bengal girl then managed to steer the game to a drawish ending and over-reached the position to allow her opponent a passed pawn after 59 moves.
In the boys section, top seed K Sasikiran of TN restored his lead with a miniature victory over second seed R Karthik in the Nimzo-Indian defence. Karthik went for a dubious pawn capture in the queen file and never recovered. Sasi broke through the kingside and uncorked a mating attack which yielded him material by move 21 and got his sixth point.
Half a point behind Sasi with 5.5 points were Sounderrajan Kidambi, R Karthik (both TN), P Harikrishna (AP), Prathamesh Mokal (Maharashtra) and S Satyakam (Orissa). Top board results (7th round)
Boys: K Sasikiran (TN) 6 bt R Karthik (TN) 5.5; P Harikrishna (AP) 5.5 drew with S Kidambi (TN) 5.5; P Mokal (Mah) 5.5 bt CJ Arvind (TN) 4.5; Satyakam (Ori)5.5 bt MR Venkatesh (TN) 4.5; Venkat (TN) 4.5 lost to Tejas Bakre (IA) 5; K Ramu (AP) 5 bt Syed Anwar Shazuli (TN) 4; V Kamble (Mah) 5 bt R Kashelkar (Mah) 4; Manthan Chokshi (Guj) 3.5 lost to K Ratnakaran (Ker) 4.5; G Vinod (TN) 4.5 bt Lakshminarayanan (Ker) 3.5; S Kutwal (Mah) 4.5 bt Harishyam Kolom (Mani) 3.5; Salilkumar (Ker) 3.5 lost to Rishipal Singh (AP) 4.5; S Banerjee (Mah) 4 drew with R Pulekar (AP) 4; BP Gupta (Raj) 4 bt G Sajesh (Ker) 3.5; Pradeepkumar (Ker) 3 lost to A Bhivagade (MP) 4.
Girls: Pallavi Shah (Mah) 6.5 bt Ashwini Kulkarni (Mah) 4.5; Swati Mohota (WB) 5 lost to Manasi Dadarkar (Mah) 5.5; Nisha Mohota (WB) 4 lost to S Meenakshi (TN) 5.5; Chitra Sridhar (Kar) 5 bt Baisakhi Das (WB) 4; Prathibha (GSWCA) 5 bt P L Sivakami (TN) 4; Ananya Sarkar (GNCA) 5 bt Kavitha C (AP) 4; Aswhini Puchapurkar (Mah) 5 bt K Charanya (T Nagar) 4; Sasinas Haritha (Ker) 4.5 bt N Sandhya (Ker) 3.5; Abha Thakur (Mah) 4.5 bt Sanitha Sathyan (Ker) 3.5; S.Sujatha (TN) 4 bt RA Mahima (GSWCA) 3.5; S Cynthia (TN) 4bt K Prajeesha (Ker) 3; Mugdha Dolas (Mah) 3.5 drew with V Sindhu (Ker) 3.5; Preeti Bisoi (Ori) 3.5 drew with M Priyadarshini (TN) 3.5
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
