Kruttika becomes Champion, qualifies for World Cup

New Delhi: National Champion Kruttika Nadig won the Asian Zone 3.2 Women title after beating Grandmaster Nisha Mohota in the final round and secured a berth in the next World Cup, on Friday. In a dramatic turnaround on the final day, another title contender Bangladeshi national champion Sultana Sharmin Shirin surprisingly lost her seventh round encounter to unheralded Sri Lankan player Sachini Ranasinghe and that leaved Nisha requiring just half point against to ensure the title. Needed full point from final round outing, Pune based Kruttika went for an all out attack game in Ruy Lopez opening and sealed the victory in 64 moves and a place in World Cup.Nisha Mohota and top seed Tania Sachdev were tied at second spot with four points each but better tie break score helped Tania to claim second position while Nisha had to be content with third spot. Meanwhile in the Men’s section, local hope Sriram Jha took the sole lead with eight points after outwitting Gillani Tunveer of Pakistan in the 10th round. Looking for his second GM norm and world cup berth, Jha overcame his Pakistani rival in 37 moves. Veteran grandmaster Praveen Thipsay and second seed Deepan Chakkravarthy are closely following the leader with a drift of half point. In the 10th round Thipsay beat Neelotpal Das after 51 moves in Sicilian Defence while Deepan had it easy against Kesav Malla of Bhutan. Vidit exploited the kingside weakness of Koshy with his queen and bishop. Koshy exchanged queens but Vidits bishop proved far superior in the endgame that gave him the full point. City-based world U-12 boys champion, Sayantan Das, went down to IM Sudhakar Babu of Indian Bank. Babu sacrificed a knight for three pawns in the middle game which gave him two connected passed pawns in the centre. Sayantan tried to ease the pressure by giving back his knight, but it proved futile. The only WGM of the meet, Mary Ann Gomes of Bengal prevailed over her state-mate Debashis Mukherjee in 37 moves in an English opening.The leaders with three points each include Adhiban, Sudhakar, S P Sethuraman, Mary, Anwesh Upadhyaya, Himanshu Sharma, Vidit, Ramnath Bhuvanesh R, M Shyam Sundar, Matta Vinay Kumar, P D S Girinath, Anup Deshmukh, Rahul Shetty, Rahul Sangma, P Maheswaran, Soumya Thakurta and Padmini. Saturday will be rest day for the 13 round Swiss League championship organised by West Bengal Chess Association. Monday’s proceedings will see fourth and fifth round games in two sessions. Results (Indians otherwise stated): Men (Round-10): IM Sriram Jha (8) beat Gillani Tunveer of Pakistan (3); Ahmed Ashraf of Maldives (1) lost to GM Reefat Bin-Sattar of Bangladesh (4.5); Surbir Lama of Nepal (3.5) beat Hapuarachchi HLM of Sri Lanka (2); IM K Rathnakaran (7) beat GM Ziaur Rahman of Bangladesh (6.5); Kesav Malla of Bhutan (0) lost to GM Deepan Chakkravarthy (7.5); GM Praveen Thipsay (7.5) beat GM Neelotpal Das (7); Amir Karim of Pakistan (2.5) got bye. Men (Round-9): Neelotpal Das beat Malla Kesav; Deepan Chakkravarthy drew with K Rathnakaran ; Ziaur Rahman beat Surbir Lama ; Hapuarachchi beat Ahmed Ashraf ; Reefat Bin-Sattar drew with Sriram Jha; Gillani Tunveer drew with Amir Karim; Praveen Thipsay got bye. Women (Round-7): Sachini Ranasinghe of Sri Lanka (2) beat Sultana Sharmin Shirin of Bangladesh (3.5); Monalisa Khamboo of Nepal (0) lost to WGM Swathi Ghate (3); WGM Kruttika Nadig (4.5) beat WGM Nisha Mohota (4); IM Tania Sachdev (4) got bye. Women (Final Standings): (1) WGM Kruttika Nadig of India with 4.5 points (2) IM Tania Sachdev of India with 4 points (3) WGM Nisha Mohota of India with 4 points (4) Sultana Sharmin Shirin of Bangladesh with 3.5 points (5) WGM Swathi Ghate of India with 3 points (6) Sachini Ranasinghe of Sri Lanka with 2 points (6) Monalisa Khamboo with 0 points. Bureau Report