The Hindu : Deshmukh, Wajih in top spot

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Apr 19, 2002

Sport

Sport - Chess

Deshmukh, Wajih in top spot

NEW DELHI APRIL 18. International Master Anup Deshmukh and Nassir Wajih scored comprehensive victories to be in the joint lead after the third round of the Global Networks International Rating chess tournament at the Russian Culture Centre here.

Deshmukh of LIC defeated Akshay Kumar Jain while Wajih of Railways beat Navneet Sharma as the two kept their slates clean.

Candidate IM Vishal Sareen of LIC, G.B. Joshi and V.S. Negi, both of Indian Airlines, and Santosh Kumar Sinha of Bihar were second with 2 points.

Top seeded IM N. Sudhakar Babu of Indian Bank, Akshay Kumar Jain and Gurpreet Pal Singh, with 1.5 points each, were next in the list.

Deshmukh benefited from offbeat variations of King Pawn Opening against Jain. Playing black, Deshmukh seized control of weakened white king side in the early middle game. He manoeuvred his pieces excellently to invade the opposition territory.

Jain was forced to part with an exchange and it was a lost battle thereon. Anup completed the formalities in simple and effective fashion and registered his third victory on the trot.

Wajih also made short work of his young opponent Navneet Sharma, who is playing the tournament as an unrated player. Yet to open his account in the tournament, Navneet proved no match against experienced Wajih and went down from an English Opening game with black pieces.

After the shock loss in the first round and a draw from the second, Sudhakar Babu finally showed his mettle in a fine game against unrated Sanchit Agarwal, who misread Babu's technical prowess.

In an Italian game, Babu equalised easily and opted to play a level endgame where he gradually outplayed Sanchit in all departments.

Sareen played a draw against Joshi from the white side of a King's Indian defence game. Joshi did not give any chance to Vishal to strive for the initiative in the Bayonet attack variation and the truce was signed in just 17 moves. Negi accounted for young Sankalp Modwal in a Sicilian Nazdorf defence game with black pieces.

Sankalp fumbled with the opening and was saddled with a weak queenside in the ensuing middlegame. Negi pocketed a pawn and it was easy thereafter.

The results (third round): A. K. Jain (1.5) lost to Anup Deshmukh (3); Nassir Wajih (3) bt Navneet Sharma (0); Sankalp Modwal (1) lost to V. S. Negi (2); Vishal Sareen (2) drew with G.B. Joshi (2); S.K. Sinha (2) bt D.S. Negi (1); G.P. Singh (1.5) bt K. Duggal (0); Sanchit Agarwal (0.5) lost to N. S. Babu (1.5).

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