2008 National 'A' Women's Chess Championship of India

From Indopia.in Tania off to a flier in National Women's 'A' chess Published: December 18,2008 New Delhi, Defending champion Tania Sachdev of Air India got off to a flying start defeating Amrutha Mokal of Maharashtra in the first round of the Parsvnath 35th National Women schess championship here today. Second seed Kruttika Nadig and fourth seed Soumya Swaminathan also scored fine victories over Kiran Manisha Mohanty and Asian Junior champion Mary Ann Gomes respectively. Third seed Eesha Karavade was lucky to escape with a draw against Nisha Mohota in the opener. In the other games of the day, Swati Ghate played imaginatively to beat Bhakti Kulkarni while youngest participant and under-14 girls world champion Padmini Rout played out a draw with Pon N Krithika. The 12-player, 11-round event saw some fascinating games in the first round and Tania was quite impressive in her mauling of Amrutha who was outplayed after a bad opening. Playing the white side of Queen Indian defense, International Master Tania controlled the game early. Amrutha fell under time pressure and gave up in just 28 moves. Playing with black pieces, Soumya Swaminathan accounted for in-form Mary in a Sicilian Najdorf game. Launching a side variation in English attack, Soumya benefited from a strategic error in the middle game from Mary and won after 33 moves. Mohanty tried a recently popular variation in the Sicilian Najdorf against Kruttika Nadig but her plans were foiled by the latter in a fine display of counter attacking chess. Kruttika won in 37 moves. Round One Results: Tania Sachdev beat Amrutha Mokal; Bhakti Kulkarni lst to Swati Ghate; Soumya Swaminatha beat Mary Ann Gomes; Kiran Manisha Mohanty lost to Kruttika Nadig; Pon N Krithika drew with Padmini Rout; Eesha Karavade drew with Nisha Mohota.