TEAM HERALD
sports@herald-goa.com
PANJIM: Goa Carbon Ltd Goodwill Ambassador and Woman Grand Master Bhakti Kulkarni collected six points to win the best woman player awarded in International Grand Masters Chess tournament, at Hyderabad, Wednesday.
She outsmarted world under-14 girls’ champion M. Mahalaxmi, former world junior girls champion Soumya Swaminathan and Maria Gevorghyan (Armenia) among others.
In the last and 11 round, Bhakti held former Asian junior champion and International Master P. Karthikeyan to a hard fought draw in Dutch Defence. Grand Master P. Sethuraman won the overall event ahead of top seeded Ivan Popov (Russia).
It was not a cake walk for Bhakti all the way. She was trailing behind others with a dismal score of 2.5 points after seven rounds.
“I was distracted by constant power failures in the tournament hall and was committing silly mistakes. Some even suggested me to withdraw from the competition to save rating. But I decided to leave all dark thoughts behind and concentrated in the latter half. And I was rewarded,” Bhakti narrated.
She won three games on trot and was in the lead which she never relinquished.
Bhakti has been invited to play in an international tournament at Al Ain, UAE from December 17.
“Hope I finish this year on winning note too,” said the chess queen, who won gold in the Commonwealth last December.
