Last month, Trisha Kanyamarala qualified for the WGM title, making her third norm at the XTX Markets London Chess Classic Open, November 27-December 3, having met all other requirements. Congratulations! This terrific achievement came shortly after her twentieth birthday.
She won the Irish Women’s Championship in 2022, for the first and so far only time. A full report has been uploaded to the Tournament pages here, containing all games.
The field of 16 contained three former champions: Ioana Gelip, Diana Mirza, and Alice O’Gorman (defending). Trisha’s 5/5 score included successive wins against these three.
As Tim Harding pointed out in his report on the Chess Mail web site, this win was “not without several hard-fought games with her rivals”. Indeed, Diana Mirza had a clearly won game against her in the second round.
34… ?
After the natural 34… e4, the black bishop joins the attack to devastating effect. One point is that 35. Rxf5 is met by 35… a3, and if 36. b3, then 36… Rxb3+! 37. axb3 Rxb3+, winning.
Mirza, with a little over five minutes on the clock, chose 34… f4 instead, presumably to avoid the white rook generating an attack, and after 35. Qd3 erred again with 35… Qxb7?. After 36. Qxh7 she was lost. Here the awkward-looking 35… Kg8 would still have left her with a much better or winning position.