Mary Ann lost to Swati Ghate

Bangalore: Woman Grandmaster and former under-18 world champion Aarthie Ramaswamy of Indian Airlines was upset by MR Sangeetha of Tamil Nadu while overnight joint leader Mary Ann Gomes (West Bengal) lost to WGM Swathi Ghate (LIC) in the fourth round of the national A women?s chess championship here Wednesday.

At the end of fourth round, Aarthie, Mary Ann and Sangeetha shared the lead with three points each.

Aarthie, playing white, made a strategic mistake of giving up the strong knight for a bishop on 27th move and Sangeetha closed out the match with a fine rook sacrifice on the 39th move.

Mary Ann Gomes and Swathi Ghate played the English attack variation of Sicilian Najdorf variation. Mary sacrificed a pawn on the queen side without getting compensation and was saddled with bad structure. Swathi won in 53 moves.

Top seeded WGM Nisha Mohota of West Bengal played Sicilian Najdorf against local hope Kruttika Nadig. Kruttika made a serious mistake of playing queen to h3 on move 21 resulting in an inferior position to lose in 30 moves.

In a creditable performance, new entrant to national A, Nimmy George of Kerala held five-time national champion Bhagyshree Thipsay to a draw in 69 moves of Ruy Lopez game.