Divya Deshmukh strengthened her title-defence by beating overnight leader Mary Ann Gomes to emerge as the new leader at seven points after eight rounds of the MPL National women’s chess championship at Kolhapur on Monday.
Mary (6.5 points) slipped to the second spot, half-a-point ahead of Isha Sharma, Sakshi Chitlange, top seed Vantika Agrawal, Soumya Swaminathan, C. M. N. Sunyuktha and Sreeja Seshadri.
Seeded two, Divya dominated Mary after the early exchanges. An extra kingside pawn gave Divya a clear advantage going deeper into the game. Her proactive approach earned her vital space advantage that severely hampered Mary’s chances. Mary eventually gave up when faced with the prospects of an immediate loss of a bishop or the game in 59 moves.
Even as the boards involving Isha and Sakshi and the one featuring Vantika and Bhakti Kulkarni ended as draws, Soumya, Sunyuktha and Sreeja made progress at the expense of P. Supreetha, Rucha Pujari and Hajra Chandreyee, in that order.
Leading results:
Eighth round: Divya Deshmukh (7) bt Mary Ann Gomes (6.5); Isha Sharma (6) drew with Sakshi Chitlange (6); Vantika Agrawal (6) drew with Bhakti Kulkarni (5.5); P. Supreetha (5) lost to Soumya Swaminathan (6); Rucha Pujari (5) lost to C. M. N. Sunyuktha (6); Srija Seshadri (6) bt Hajra Chandreyee (5); Aashna Makhija (5.5) drew with Nisha Mohota (5.5); V. Varshini (5.5) drew with Samriddhaa Ghosh (5.5); G. Tejaswini (5) drew with M. Mahalakshmi (5); Mitali Patil (5) drew with Arpita Mukherjee (5); Vishwa Shah (5.5) bt Bristy Mukherjee (4.5); A. G. Nimmy (5.5) bt Rajanya Datta (4.5); Saniya Rafique Tadavi (5.5) bt Swati Ghate (4.5).
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