Amruta in sole lead

Pune, June 14: The best always thrive on competition. Amruta Mokal, the top seed in the girls' section, had a busy Wednesday, as she stave...

Pune, June 14: The best always thrive on competition. Amruta Mokal, the top seed in the girls’ section, had a busy Wednesday, as she staved off the challenge of her arch-rivals – second seed Soumya Swaminathan (Round 3) and Mohita Agarwal, the third seed (Round 4) in the Maharashtra State selection chess tournament at the Manohar Mangal Karyalaya.

With two more rounds to go Amruta, who now has four points, leads her nearest rival by one point. This in the final analysis may prove crucial. The Pune girl now faces the unseeded Vrishali Kulkarni in the penultimate round.

Soumya, Mohita (both from Pune), and the unseeded Kulkarni twins Vrishali and Vaishali (Dombivli), share the second position on three points.

In the Amruta-Soumya game, Amruta opened with the King Pawn to which her opponent replied with the classical Ruy Lopez. They took just 15 minutes for the first twenty three moves. Later, Soumya won two pawns, playing beautifully. But later, she took her queen away from the king. Taking advantage of this, Amruta attacked with her queen and two knights. The attack proved fatal for Soumya as Amruta won in 63 moves with just 30 seconds left on the clock. A tearful Soumya couldn’t hide her emotions after losing from a winning position. In her next game, in the afternoon, Amruta playing black, adopted the Sicilian Paulsen against Mohita, and won.
RESULTS (Round 4): BOYS: Tanmay Rajpathak (Pun) 3.5 drew Arjun Tiwari (Aur) 3.5; Gurpreet Manas (Nag) 3.5 drew Yogesh Mapari (Aora) 3.5; Sagar Sadawarte (Mum) 3.5 drew Parag Terwadkar (Mum) 3.5; Omkar Adwant (Aur) 2.5 lost to Mihir N (Pun) 3.5; Yash Puranik (Nashik) 3.5 bt T. Konde Deshmukh (Pun) 2.5
GIRLS: Mohita Agarwal (Pun) 3 lost T. Amruta Mokal (Pun) 4; Soumya Swaminathan (Pun) 3 bt S. Ghatpande (Pun) 2.5; M. Deshpande (Nag) 2 lost to Vrishali Kulkarni (Dombivli) 3.