Divya Draws Game 2 To Advance In Round 3 Of World Cup
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Nagpur: A day after she won with her white pieces, Nagpur's International Master (IM) Divya Deshmukh played out a 37-move draw with Kesaria Mgeladze of Georgia to win the second round 1.5-0.5 and advance to the round of 32 in the FIDE Women's World Cup at Batumi on Thursday.
While Divya advanced to the third round with a win and a draw, she will join India's most experienced Grandmaster Koneru Humpy, D Harika, and Vaishali Rameshbabu among the top 32 players remaining in the fray in the seven-round World Cup.
On the Kings' Pawn opening played by Georgia's Mgeladze, the reigning world junior girls champion and 19-year-old Divya chose the Caro-Kann defense in Tartakower variation. With an equal position, both players made inaccurate moves on the 29th turn, and Divya became a piece down in the 34th move after sacrificing her knight.
Despite losing a piece, Divya continued her attacking play by bringing her queen into action, and after repeating her moves twice, Mgeladze was left with no option but to split the points as the game ended in a draw on the 37th move.
In the knockout format of the seven-round World Cup, comprising two-game matches in the classical format will be played followed by a rapid tie-break round.
Much like Divya, Humpy and Harika won their respective second-round contests with an identical score of 1.5-0.5.
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Vaishali, however, won both her second-round games against Canada's Ouellet Maili-Jade to advance to the third round with an emphatic 2-0 win.
While Humpy drew her second game by repetition against Uzbekistan's Afruza Khamdamova in 44 moves, Harika utilised her opening advantage with the white pieces to outplay compatriot PV Nandhidhaa in 37 moves after both the Indian masters drew their opening game on Wednesday.
Among the other Indians in the fray, Padmini Rout and Priyanka K held their respective higher-ranked opponents with a draw to play the tie-break round of two games in rapid format on Friday.
Vantika Agrawal, however, suffered defeat with the black pieces against former world champion Anna Ushenina. On Wednesday, Vantika stunned Ukraine's Ushenina. With the scores of Vantika and Ushenina in the classical format remaining at par, both will now lock horns in a shorter format to break the tie.
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