National Women’s Chess C’ship: Mary Ann Gomes stops Soumya Swaminathan, stays in lead

Mary, seeded a place below Soumya at four, came out stronger in a rook-and-pawn endgame for her fourth successive victory and sixth in the competition.

Published : Jan 01, 2023 18:57 IST , NEW DELHI

Mary Ann Gomes.
Mary Ann Gomes. | Photo Credit: FILE PHOTO: JOTHI RAMALINGAM B
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Mary Ann Gomes. | Photo Credit: FILE PHOTO: JOTHI RAMALINGAM B

In a battle involving two former champions, Mary Ann Gomes stopped her Indian Oil teammate Soumya Swaminathan in 53 moves to lead with 6.5 points from seven rounds of the MPL National women’s chess championship at Kolhapur on Sunday.

Mary, seeded a place below Soumya at four, came out stronger in a rook-and-pawn endgame for her fourth successive victory and sixth in the competition.

Decisive battles on the top-12 boards left defending champion Divya Deshmukh (6) waiting in the second spot to take on fourth seed Mary on Monday.

Much before Divya defeated Aashna Makhija in 52 moves, Sakshi Chitlange upstaged fifth seed Bhakti Kulkarni in 24 moves.

Joining Sakshi at 5.5 points in the third spot were top seed Vantika Agrawal and Isha Sharma.

Leading results:

Seventh round: Mary Ann Gomes (6.5) bt Soumya Swaminathan (5); Divya Deshmukh (6) bt Aashna Makhija (5); Sakshi Chitlange (5.5) bt Bhakti Kulkarni (5); Arpita Mukherjee (4.5) lost to Vantika Agrawal (5.5); M. Mahalakshmi (4.5) lost to Isha Sharma (5.5); Swati Ghate (4.5) lost to Rucha Pujari (5); P. Saye Sreezza (4) lost to Srija Seshadri (5); Aakanksha Hagawane (4) lost to P. Supreetha (5); Nisha Mohota (bt) V. Rindhiya (4); C. Lakshmi (4) lost to V. Varshini (5); B. Mounika Akshaya (4) lost to H. Hajra Chandreyee (5); C. M. N. Sunyuktha (5) bt Mrudul Dehankar (4); Bristy Mukherjee (4.5) drew with A. G. Nimmy (4.5); Samriddha Ghosh (5) bt Tejaswini Sagar (4); Srishti Pandey (4) drew with G. Tejaswini (4.5).

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