Saheli Barua shocks Vijayalakshmi

Assured of a fourth champion's title on the trot, woman Grandmaster Subbaraman Vijaylaksmi let complacency creep in as she allowed International Women's Master Saheli Barua to inflict defeat on her in a marathon match of the 12th and penultimate round of the 27th National womens A' chess championship in Delhi on Thursday.

Despite the shock defeat, Vijayalakshmi (9.5) enjoys a 1.5 points lead over her younger sister IWM Subbaraman Meenakshi, who is on a scholarship with Indian Airlines, and Swati Ghate of LIC.

In with a chance to fill the coveted fourth spot that will ensure her a place in the Indian team is double WGM norm holder Aarthie Ramaswamy of Wipro and IWM Bhagyashree Thipsay of IDBI on 7.5 points.

Bhagyashree has a tough customer in Vijayalakshmi on Friday in the last round while Aarthie plays against lowly-placed M R Sangeetha of Tamil Nadu.

Aiming for one more win, Vijayalakshmi became over-ambitious in a Queen's Gambit declined game with white pieces.

Taking a cue from her husband, GM Dibyendu Barua's, opening repertoire, Saheli equalised in the exchange variation without much difficulty and it was a level endgame with the minor pieces getting exchanged at regular intervals when Vijayalakshmi lost control and went down after a gruelling duel lasting 79 moves.

Meenakshi defeated former national champion IWM Anupama Gokhale to put her out of contention for a place in the national squad. The Fianchetto variation of the Slav defence gave Meenakshi a level position after the opening and the queens got exchanged as early as on the 8th move.

The ensuing middlegame was played extremely well by Meenakshi and she got a favourable rooks and pawns endgame to romp home in 48 moves.

Swati Ghate outsmarted Sangeetha in a closed variation of the Sicilian defence with black pieces. After the exchange of couple of minor pieces and the queen by the 16th move, Swati struck on the queenside with routine pawn advances and got a decisive advantage.

Bhagyashree made short work of Dolan Champa Bose of Jharkhand in a Bishop's opening game with black pieces. Dolan went for unwarranted complications in the middlegame and had to pay heavy dividends as Bhagyashree invaded through the king side with menacing threats. Dolan resigned in 28 moves.

Aarthie had to sweat hard before getting the full point from Saimeera Ravi in the open variation of the Ruy Lopez with white pieces. After getting a slight advantage in the middlegame Aarthie pressed it home after 55 moves.

Results (Round 12):
Saheli Barua (6.5) bt S Vijayalakshmi (9.5); A Gokhale (6) lost to S Meenakshi (8); M R Sangeetha (3.5) lost to Swati Ghate (8); D C Bose (3.5) lost to Bhagyashree Thipsay (7.5); Saimeera Ravi (4.5) lost to R Aarthie (7.5); Y Pratibha (5) drew Nisha Mohota (6); D Harika (5.5) bt Pallavi Shah (3).