NAIROBI, Kenya, Oct 3 – Kenyan Sasha Mongeli has accomplished the World Women Candidate Master with two games to spare after attaining 4 out of 5 at the 43rd World Chess Olympiad in Batumi, Georgia.
Kenyan men squad comprising of Victor Ng’ani and CM Ben Magana stunned higher rate Malta team during the competition to win 2 1/2 points during the outing.
World Women Candidate Mongeli victory came through during the 7th round when she beat Tanzania’s Navini Alaphati.
Sasha was black and played petroff defence in a double kings pawn opening. She obtained rapid piece development and won a free bishop on move 20. The advantage being too great for the moment to withstand, Navini respectively resigned on move 30.
In another match of the day, it was a double queens pawn opening for KCB Jumba Gloria . She chose the Catalan set up and by move 19 won a free knight and went on to check mate her opponent on move 30.
Lucy Wanjiru had a tough pairing playing black against Samson Bertha. She chose the French defence, her opponent chose the exchange variation but then had to relinquish two pawns on moves 12 and 14.
Lucy confidently converted in a better end resulting in making of anew queen and checkmating her opponent in 48 moves.
Daphne Mwikali was white against Ebrahim Zahabiyah. She choose the English opening to which the opening responded E5 the reverse Sicilian. By move 11 black had to contend with fractured pawns on the king’s side.
White slowly squeezed the space against the back king and by move 25 white had to give up an exchange.
The resulting end game was much better for black and Daphne duly converted with check mate on move 41.
Victor Ng’ani defeated Candidate Master Psaila Clarence in a Slav defence. The candidate master played the unusual queen C2 while Victor adopted long-term strategic plan of forcing the advance of the white c pawn a doubling of the white pawn on b file.
White spent too much time with his queen and pawns giving white a leading development. Victor played a clever a bishop e4 move causing white to respond f3 leaving his white knight without proper retreat square.
Two moves later Victor had positioned his knight on a strong square on d5, which saw his opponent made a strategic mistake of opening the g file falling for victor’s trap leaving him in a strategically lost position.
This forced the opponent to resign in a further 12 moves faced with prospects of losing a room or being checkmated.
” It was one of my best played games in the tournament, I made long-term strategic plans that paid off, I found very strong, but shuttle moves that my opponent found difficult to understand and I am very pleased to have won the game”, said Victor.
CM Ben Magana defeated higher rated Candidate Master Pace Colin rated 2132. CM Colin choose the Italian game with bishop C4 after a double kings pawn opening. Magana responded with the two knights defence managing to vary the move order and transposed the game into a Lopez structure.
On move 21 and in his typical style Magana picked a defended pawn on d5 with his knight. Rather than accepting the sacrifice which would have led to a quick loss for Collins, the CM decided to let the pawn go but couldn’t recover.
Magana won a second pawn and the resulting end game was clearly better for black his opponent resigned on move 36.