Swamy, Riya, Gauri, Vidula in joint lead Top ranked Prasanna Sawamy and young prodigious talents Riya Sawant, Gauri Hadkonkar and Vidula Dempo scored impressive wins in their 5th round matches to move into the Joint Lead with 5 points each at the end of Round 5 of the ‘Late Shripad Vishnu Kamat Tarcar Memorial’ All Goa State Women’s Chess Championship organized by JCI St. Inez in association with Sports Authority of Goa and Goa Chess Association, at the Indoor Stadium, Campal-Panaji.
Mrs Swamy, playing the Queens Gambit against her opponent, the young Urvi Bandekar, gained an immediate opening advantage. Later, Urvi committed a blunder in the middle game and lost a knight in the process thereby giving her opponent a comfortable win in 50 moves. Gauri Hadkonkar, playing on board 2, shocked the 2nd ranked Nandini Sarapalli with some great endgame play in a game that was looking poised for a draw. On Board 3, Riya Sawant, demonstrating her mastery over the Sicilian defense Dragon variation opening, outplayed her opponent Vandana Bandokdkar. Riya gained the breakthrough in the middle game through some clever moves. She managed to capture her opponent’s queen through a brilliant attacking combination and a discovered check and thereafter checkmated her opponent with comfortable ease. Vidula Dempo too moved into the top spot scoring a hard fought win over another young talent, Riddhi Zantye in a grueling encounter. The following players are placed on 4 points each: Nandini Sapapalli, Sampada Barve, Aishwarya Thorat, Urvi Bandekar, Vandana Bandodkar, Soumya Shanbag, Sakshi Gaonkar, Sayani Kerkar, Shanskruti Naroji, Disha Verenkar, Sweeny Rodrigues, Bhakti Naik, Sonali Kerkar and Swera Braganza. Earlier, Shri V.M. Prabhudesai, Executive Director SAG, inaugurated the Championship in the presence of Mr. Chetan Tarcar of Virashree Hotels, President of JCI St. Inez Rupesh Golatkar, Jt. Secretaries of GCA Mr. D.R. Pinge and Mr. Balakrishnan and Tournament coordinator Sandeep Heble A record 140 girls/ladies are participating in the championship. Photograph of the top 3 Players in action during Round 5 is available at: http://tinyurl.com/tarcar-chess yours sincerely Sandeep Heble Tournament coordinator 9326129171
