Divya stretches lead to stay on top in U-15 chess Nationals

NAGPUR: A day after regaining the top position, city’s only Women International Master (WIM) Divya Deshmukh stretched her advantage on Monday to a crucial one-point lead in the National U-15 chess championship being played in Kolkata. The All India Chess Federation (AICF) is conducting the 44th open and 35th edition of girls’ nationals to pick the Indian teams for the Asian U-15 chess championship.
Divya, the two-time World Cadet Chess Champion, posted a hard-fought victory in the ninth round to garner eight points and lead the pack of 140 masters by one point in the girls’ group. Third seed Mrudul Dehankar regained her second position with a facile win, while Narayani Adane is at the third spot.
In the Open category, where 248 masters from across the country are vying for honours, Sankalp Gupta played safe in the ninth round to secure a quick draw. With this 30-move draw, the state U-15 champion slipped back to the joint second position.
The top board battle in the girls’ section saw a fighting contest between the top two seeds. After a marathon play that lasted for over four hours and 71 moves, top-seeded Divya defeated second seed Salonika Saina of Odisha. Utilising her opening advantage well, Divya started with the Queens Pawn move, while Salonika converted the same into English opening.
Until 62 moves, the position remained equal for both the masters before Divya started playing aggressively and scalped Salonika’s Kings Pawn. Having secured a desired result by becoming a pawn up, Divya quickly gained the Rook over Bishop advantage by the 65th move. The following six moves were enough for the 12-year-old city prodigy to trap Salonika’s King and force the Women Fide Master (WFM) from Odisha to resign.
On the third table, Mrudul Dehankar utilised her opening advantage with the white pieces well to prevail over West Bengal’s Sudipa Haldar in only 44 moves. Third-seeded Mrudul opted for the Queens Pawn opening to get the better of Sudipa’s Kings Indian defence. With this easy win, Mrudul collected seven points and is sharing the second position with four others.
Similarly, Narayani Adane posted a fluent victory over Diya Chowdhury of West Bengal on the 10th board to join the party at the joint third spot.
Safety first was the approach of city’s Maharashtra State U-15 champion Gupta in the Open category. A day after the second seed surprised top-ranked Koustav Chatterjee to share the lead, Gupta defended well with the black pieces and played out a 30-move draw with West Bengal’s Utsab Chatterjee. On Ustab’s Kings Pawn opening, Sankalp played out some irregular moves to secure a quick draw.
While Gupta played safe, Tamil Nadu's 10th seed Ajay Karthikeyan came out all guns blazing against joint leader Soham Kamotra of Jammu and Kashmir. Karthikeyan’s attacking play helped him post a quick 29-move win and jump to sole lead with eight points while Gupta is holding fort at 7.5 points with two others.
In the 10th and penultimate round on Tuesday, Gupta will look to utilise opening advantage with the white pieces against third seed Aronyak Ghosh. In the girls’ section, the city’s trio of Divya, Mrudul and Narayani will defend with the black bits.