Chennai: Mary Ann Gomes of Airports Authority of India latched on to a rare blunder from Padmini Rout of Orissa to be in joint lead after the eighth round of the Velammal National Premier women's chess championship here on Sunday.
Mary Ann joined Tania Sachdev of Air India in the lead on six points from eight games. Andhra's C. Divyasree shares the third place with 5.5 points along with WGMs Eesha Karavade (Mah), Nisha Mohota (WB) and Padmini (Ori).
Tania drew Nisha without any difficulty with the black pieces in 33 moves. Nisha played the queen's gambit with the white pieces and Tania responded with the Lasker's defence and neither side got an edge and an insipid draw resulted.
On move 38, Padmini blundered and Mary Ann pinned and won a knight. This material loss was too much for Padmini who went down fighting. Meenakshi played too ambitiously with the white pieces to lose to Eesha Karavade in 50 moves.
The results (eighth round): Nisha Mohota (WB) 5.5 drew with Tania Sachdev (Del) 6; Padmini Rout (Ori) 5.5 lost to Mary Ann Gomes (WB) 6; S. Meenakshi (TN) 4.5 lost to Eesha Karavade (Mah) 5.5; Soumya Swaminathan (Mah) 4 lost to C. Divyasree (AP) 5.5; Sai Meera (TN) 5 bt Swati Ghate (Mah) 4; Kiran Mohanty (Ori) 5 bt J. Saranya (TN) 4; Nimmy George (Ker) 4 drew with B. Pratyusha (AP) 4.5; Bhakti Kulkarni (Goa) 4 drew with M. Mahalakshmi (TN) 4; Pon N. Krithikha (TN) 3.5 lost to Michelle Catherina (TN) 4.5; R. Bharathi (TN) 4 bt C. Sahajasri (AP) 3; P.V. Nandhidhaa (TN) 3 lost to S. Harini (TN) 4; Aarthie Ramaswamy (TN) 3.5 bt Shweta Gole (Mah) 2.5; Swati Mohota (WB) 3.5 bt Madhurima Shekhar (Del) 2; Supriya Joshi (Mah) 2 drew with A. Akshaya (TN) 3; Bala Kannamma (TN) 3.5 (bye).
The Hindu