Ganguly, Barua play out safe draws

By Arvind Aaron

COLOMBO, MAY 11. Having ensured that the zonal men's and women's titles are retained, the Indians continued to excel by winning all five games in the women's section of the FIDE World chess championship zonal tournament in progress here at the Airport Garden Hotel on Friday.

The lead remain unchanged in both sections with the Bengali duo of Surya Sekhar Ganguly and Dibyendu Barua making safe draws to reach 7.5 points. Similarly, the Maharashtrian duo and roommates here, Swati Ghate and Pallavi Shah kept their top position scoring easy victories. All five Indian women won against non- Indian opposition. Pallavi and Swati lead with six points from seven rounds.

In both sections two rounds remain to be played and the contest will come to a close on Sunday.

In the men's section, top seed Sasikiran won an easy 29-move game against Sri Lanka's T.D.R. Peiris with the white pieces using the Larsen opening. The Chennai Grandmaster won a sacrificed pawn on the 14th move and used that to win a major pieces ending to move to clear third place on seven points.

Abhijit Kunte won a thriller against Reefat Bin-Sattar with the black pieces from a Sicilian defence. Using his rook, bishop and knight he tamed Reefat's lone queen with a minute and few seconds to spare. Reefat had less than 20 seconds in this high-voltage entertainer.

During this game, Kunte refused to write his scoresheet despite the arbiter asking him to do so since he had 20 minutes on his clock. Reefat was down to the last two minutes then and he did not have to write the score.

About writing the scoresheet in quickplay control put Kunte in doubt about the rule even after reading it and said it was debatable. ``I need to clarify this point because these same conditions will come up in our National championship in Delhi from June 1,'' said Kunte while browsing FIDE's website for the rules.

The games of the two leaders was drawn quickly with Ganguly falling to his own nerves in his 11-move draw with the white pieces against D.V. Prasad from a modern defence. ``I was surprised when he offered a draw,'' said Devaki Prasad who was hoping for a long game. ``With the idea in his mind, everything was dissolving into equality,'' Prasad said about the possible outcome.

On watching this encounter, Barua, the other leader proposed a draw in his board and Enamul Hossain was surprised to get this offer. They drew in 17 moves from a Petroff's defence. Hossain had exchanged off Barua's queen on move six and playing a dead equal game not trying to make use of the advantage white is normally known to have.

These two short draws may only aid Sasikiran for he has to play Ganguly in the penultimate round on Saturday. Also, Barua has a tough game against Kunte on Sunday.

In the women's section, Indian had a field day winning all five games with Pallavi Shah taking the longest, 47 moves, to down Anupama Konara with the black pieces in an English opening. Meenakshi recorded a safe and secure 43-move win over Vineetha Wijesuriya while Saheli Barua checkmated Upasena. These three were one-sided encounters.

The two decently fought games saw Vijayalakshmi powerfully attacking and scoring over veteran Dhaka player Rani Hamid in 33 moves with the white pieces. In a king's Indian attack opening, Vijayalakshmi developed a powerful king side attack and ripped open the king knight file to change the phase of the game into a mating attack.

In the other game, Swati Ghate from Pune calculated well and spotted a nice way to win a rook for knight on move 36 and the game three moves later against Tania Parveen of Bangladesh. Swati Ghate played with the black pieces and it was a

Bird's opening.

Title chances

In title chances, Pallavi is better placed than Swati but defeats to both players can open good chances for the Ethiraj College student from Chennai, Meenskshi to win the zonal. Pallavi plays Vijayalakshmi and Vineetha while Swati plays Saheli Barua and Meenskahi. Meenakshi plays Tanima Parveen and Swati Ghate. Top seed Vijayalakshmi only has theoretical chances of winning the zonals.

lThe results:

Men: round nine: K. Sasikiran bt Abu Sufain Shakil, S.S. Ganguly drew with D.V. Prasad, L. Wijesuriya lost to T.D.R. Peiris, Taibur Rahman bt H.U. Amarawickrama, Reefat Bin- Sattar lost to Abhijit Kunte, Enamul Hossain drew with Dibyendu Barua.

Women: round seven: Upasena Hasini lost to Saheli Barua, Anupama Konara lost to Pallavi Shah, S. Vijayalakshmi bt Rani Hamid, Vineetha Wijesuriya lost to S. Meenakshi, Tanima Parveen lost to Swati Ghate.

lThe standings: Men: after nine rounds: 1-2 S.S. Ganguly, D. Barua (both Ind) 7.5/9 each; 3 K. Sasikiran (Ind) 7; 4 Abhijit Kunte (Ind) 6.5; 5 D.V. Prasad (Ind) 5.5; 6-7 Reefat Bin-Sattar (Ban), Abu Sufain Shakil (Ban) 5 each; 8 Enamul Hossain (Ban) 3.5; 9 Taibur Rahman (Ban) 3; 10 T.D.R. Peiris (Srl) 2.5; 11 H.U. Amarawickrama (Srl) 1; 12 L.Wijesuriya (Srl) 0.

Women: after seven rounds: 1-2 Pallavi Shah, Swati Ghate (both Ind) 6/7 each; 3 S. Meenakshi (Ind) 5.5; 4-5 Saheli Barua, S. Vijayalakshmi (both Ind) 4.5 each; 6 Rani Hamid (Ban) 3.5; 7 Tanima Parveen (Ban) 2.5; 8 Vineetha Wijesuriya (Srl) 2; 9 Anupama Konara (Srl) 0.5; 10 Upasena Hasini (Srl) 0.

The pairings: Men: Abu Sufain v Barua, Kunte v Hossain, Amarawickrama v Reefat Bin-Sattar, Peiris v Rahman, Prasad v Wijesuriya, Sasikiran v Ganguly.

Women: Saheli Barua v Swati Ghate, Meenakshi v Tania Parveen, Rani Hamid v Vineetha Wijesuriya, Pallavi Shah v Vijayalakshmi, Upasena v Konara.

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