Mudongo moves up the ACC ladder

KENNETH BOIKHUTSWANE
Correspondent | Thursday September 6, 2007 00:00

 

Mudongo beat Nigeria's Rosemary Amadasun to chalk up her third win of the event and move up to joint second with three points from four games. She is tied with Egypt's Woman International Master (WIM) Mona Khaled. They trail South African WIM Anzel Solomons by a point.

Mudongo seems to have rediscovered the form that made her WFM in 2000, national champion and bronze medallist at the 2002 World Chess Olympiad. Back then, she was hot on the local circuit, but the emergence of Woman Grandmaster (WGM) Tuduetso Sabure and national champion Tshepiso Lopang has relegated her to the background. Her current resurgence and confidence is reflected by the fact that she financed her trip to Namibia after Botswana Chess Federation (BCF) said they did not have funds to take her there. The Tonota-born player is set to play Solomons in round five. The game has great significance over who might eventually be crowned the 2007 ACC champion.

Mudongo is still to play Khaled. The round five encounter with Solomons is a must win for the Botswana player as a loss will see her trail the leader by two points with four games to go. Defending champion Tuduetso Sabure of Botswana continues to struggle. In round four, she drew against Cindi Mbalenhie of South Africa, a result that leaves her two points behind the leader Khaled. Unless there is a huge improvement in her form, she might as well regard her title gone.

In the open section, there are signs that current Botswana champion, FIDE Master (FM) Phemelo Khetho is reviving. He defeated Zambia's Richmond Phiri in round four to move to 15th on the cross-table, just one and a half points behind the leader. Khetho has lost only one game against GM Amin Bassem of Egypt. The other Botswana player in the section, Providence Oatlhotse, suffered a setback in round four as he went down to IM Barakat Sayed Hassan of Egypt. He is now 22nd with two points. IM Robert Gwaze of Zimbabwean moved up with a win over GM Slim Belkhodja of Tunisia in round four.

Although many might regard this as a surprise result, Gwaze has an impressive track record including a board one gold medal at the Olympiad. He is touted as a possible future GM from Southern Africa. The other top of the table clash between GM-elect Amon Simutowe of Zambia and Pedro Aderito of Angola produced a draw, which left the two players on joint second with 3.5 out of four points. Following his loss, Belkhodja is down to 4th position with the likes of GM Amin.

The pairing for the fifth round sees Simutowe squaring it off with Gwaze. The two players have met before at junior level with Simutowe emerging tops. Pedro will be favoured to win over Amin in round five mainly due to his vast experience. But the 19-year-old Amin has shown he is no pushover. Amin is the current Arab champion.