Vijayalakshmi sits pretty at the top

Top seed Subbaraman Vijayalakshmi of Indian Airlines outclassed Saimeera Ravi of Bank Sports Board and stretched her overall lead to a commendable 2.5 points after the tenth round in the 27th National Women's 'A' chess championship in Delhi on Tuesday.

Following Vijaylakshmi, who has 8.5 points, are International Women Masters Bhagyashree Thipsay of IDBI, Subbaraman Meenakshi of Indian Airlines and Swati Ghate of LIC with 6 points each. Three more rounds remain in the 14-player all-play-all event.

Women Grandmaster Vijayalakshmi was in full swing and appeared to have put behind her loss in the previous round to IWM Aarthie Ramaswamy of Wipro.

Playing white, Vijayalakshmi faced the Nimzo Indian defence of Saimeera and got a slight advantage in one of the side variations. The middlegame saw agressive play as Vijayalakshmi rolled her kingside pawns and at one point looked in trouble when Saimeera too got her act together on the kingside.

However, Vijayalakshmi saved the king with a long walk to the queenside to continue her attack on the king.

Saimeera had to part with her queen for two rooks but her pieces lacked coordination. Showing good technique, Vijayalaksmi gobbled a couple of queenside pawns and won easily.

Veteran Bhagyashree got into the groove in her pet Dutch defence and accounted for IWM Anupama Gokhale of PSCB. Anupama, playing white, got a miniscule advantage after the opening but failed to keep the momentum in the middlegame.

Bhagyashree manoeuvered her rooks to the kingside to launch an attack against the king and Anupama did not get a moment's respite thereon.

In the befitting finale to a well played game, Bhagyashree sacrificed a rook and regained a move later to win two pawns without compensation. The rest was easy.

Swati got the better of Aarthie in a Sicilian Rossolimo attack game with white pieces. After getting a dynamic equality after the opening, Aarthie struck upon the wrong plan of exchanging rooks that left her with a worse queen and minor piece endgame.

Precise defence might have held the day but Aarthie fumbled once again to let the game drift to a queen and pawns endgame where Swati won a pawn to force matters.

Meenakshi was lucky to escape with a draw against 11-year-old Dronavalli Harika of Andhra Pradesh who continued her excellent run here.

he opening was a Slav defence and Meenakshi had to pay the price for over-ambitiousness in the middlegame. Harika displayed good judgement in taking the game to a heavy pieces endgame and won a pawn but failed to convert the material advantage in the end.

Results (Round 10):
Harika Dronavalli (4.5) drew S Meenakshi (6); Pallavi Shah (3) lost to Nisha Mohota (5.5); Anupama Gokhale (5) lost to Bhagyashree Thipsay (6); Y Pratibha (4) lost to Saheli Dhar Barua (4.5); Dolan Champa Bose (3.5) lost to M R Sangeetha (3.5); S Vijayalakshmi (8.5) bt Saimeera Ravi (4.5); Swati Ghate (6) bt R Aarthie.