Ramesh's GM norm hopes dashed

AMSTERDAM, AUG. 20. India's R.B. Ramesh squandered his excellent chances of earning GM-norm with a meek surrender to Grandmaster Nijboer of the Netherlands in the eighth round of the Lost Boys international Open chess tournament here.

International Master Ramesh (5 points), who needed 1.5 points from two games, lost tamely on a mixed day for Indians.

Former junior national champion Sunderarajan Kidambi and T.S. Ravi joined Ramesh on five points with wins over W. Hendriks and Blokhuis respectively.

In a battle between two GMs, Tregubov scalped Van Der Sterren and joined Mikhail Gurevich in the lead on 6.5 points.

Ramesh played the Sicilian Pelikan variation as white and the game was still along the known lines when Ramesh inexplicably blundered a pawn with `H4'.

He then followed it up with another blunder `F4' to lose another pawn and resigned on the 17th move. With this loss Ramesh lost all hopes of a GM norm here.

Ramesh had a performance rating of 2588 before the penultimate round while a performance rating of 2600 at the end of the nine rounds would have given a norm. T.S. Ravi had a well-fought win over Blokhuis. It was a Caro Kann variation and the position was quite drawish after the players entered a double rook and double knight ending.

IM P. Konguvel beat Remmel in another nice game from the black side of the Sicilian irregular variation. Konguvel opened the queenside favourably and doubled his rooks on the seventh rank and won a pawn in a rook and pawn ending.

He went on to show good technique to win the game in 60 moves to surge to four points.

Important results: 1. GM Gurevich (6.5) drew with GM Piket(6); 2. GM Tregubov (6.5) beat GM Van Der Sterren (5.5); 3. GM Ivan Sokolov (6.0) drew with GM Milov (6); 4. IM Van Der Werf (5) lost to GM Epishin (6); 5. IM R.B Ramesh (5) lost to GM Nijboer (6); 6. IM Saravanan (4.5) beat Backelin (3.5); 7. Blokhuis (4) lost to T.S Ravi (5); 8. Hendriks (4) lost to Kidambi (5); 9. Remmel (3) lost to IM Konguvel (4).

- PTI

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