Mary Ann Gomes defeats Padmini Rout; moves into joint lead

Chennai: WGM Mary Ann Gomes defeated second seed Padmini Rout of Orissa to take the joint lead with top seed Tania Sachdev at the end of the eighth round of the Velammal 38th National Women Premier Chess Championship on Sunday.

IM Tania (Air India) and Mary Ann Gomes (AAI) share the lead with six points, followed by Padmini Rout (Orissa), Nisha Mohota (PSPB), Eesha Karavade (Maharashtra) and Chandika Divyasree (AP) with 5.5 points each. The Queens Gambit accepted top board game between Nisha Mohota and Tania Sachdev was a relatively quiet affair. Tania`s draw claim based on occurrence of three photographic positions was awarded by Chief Arbiter R C Chatterjee on move 33. The draw kept Tania on top of the table at six points, along with Mary Ann Gomes. Padmini suffered her first defeat here on the second board, losing to Mary Ann Gomes. The Sicilian Najdorf game saw both players going on attack. Just before time control, Padmini missed a crucial bishop pin on knight and rook. The resultant piece down-position was too less a compensation for her, as Mary Ann went executing her advantage to precision. Facing checkmate or further loss of material, Padmini gave up on the 60th move. Maharashtra`s IM Eesha Karavade came back into contention defeating WGM Meenakshi Subbaraman of Air India. Eesha`s win places her just half a point behind the leaders at 5.5 points. In the upset of the day, Chandika Divyasree defeated defending Champion Woman Grandmaster Sowmya Swaminathan. A second successive loss, would make higher finish a very difficult task for Sowmya. Three more rounds remain, with norm chances resting on Pratyusha Bodda, Chandika Divyasree (both AP), A G Nimmy (Kerala) and J Saranya (TN). Key ninth round pairings are: Tania-Eesha, Mary Ann-Nisha, Divyasree-Padmini, Michelle-Kiran Manisha, Pratyusha-Sai Meera. PTI