Nisha Mohota goes down

Overnight leader WIM Nisha Mohota of India tasted her first defeat, at the hands of Chinese WIM Li Ruofan, in the seventh round of the Asian Woman chess championship in Madras on Saturday.

India's WGM S Vijayalakshmi and Li Ruofan are now joint leaders with 5.5 points each. Three other Indians, Aarthie Ramaswamy, Swati Ghate and Nisha Mohota, all IWMS, and Huang Qian of China are chasing the leaders, with 5 points each.

Wang Yu, also from China, is in third spot with 4.5 points.

Nisha Mohota, who had a good tournament till now, had to pay a heavy price for not being well prepared against black's Benko Gambit. Chosing this sharp defence against d4 opening of white, Li Ruofan came out with the well prepared analysis. By sacrificing a pawn on the queen side, Li Ruofan gained space advantage and mobilised her pieces towards white's territory.

Anticipating a won queen and pawn ending, she simplified the position and forced the queens exchange on her 38th move. The resultant king was enough for the Chinese WIM to settle the issue in her favour in 48 moves.