World Top 100 Players

The crucial twelfth round game between Mary Ann Gomes and Nisha Mohota ended in a fighting draw in the 31st National Women A Championship being played at Hotel Goldfinch in Bangalore on Thursday. Nisha Mohota keeps her half point lead with 8.5 points. Mary Ann Gomes is in second place with 8 points. Anupama Gokhale who was shocked by Kruttika Nadig now shares the third place with Aarthie Ramesh on 7.5 points.

In case of a tie on points, the title will be decided on tie-break score. There is a prize money of Rs.1.32 lakhs to be decided in Friday's round 13. Friday and 13 can give all the possible results and there are chances for four players to win the title. "We will do the tie-break calculations later on Thursday evening," said the chief arbiter, V.Kameswaran of Chennai. He is India's first international arbiter.

The Mary Ann v Nisha Mohota game was a high quality draw from the English opening with the latter sacrificing a pawn for equality. Kruttika played the Grunfeld defence with the black pieces and shattered the white pawn centre of Anupama to win a rook and minor piece ending using the h pawn.

The 2003 champion Aarthie Ramesh and five time champion Bhagyashree Thipsay drew a crucial game. A win would have given Aarthie a greater chance to regain the National title. Except for Kruttika's sudden change of form, this round has expected results.

The results of the twelfth round:

The pairing for Friday's final round:

C o n t a c t