The Hindu : Sport : Ratnakaran snatches lead

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Sunday, Dec 09, 2007
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Sport

Ratnakaran snatches lead

Rakesh Rao

— Photo: R.V. Moorthy

K. Ratnakaran.

NEW DELHI: K. Ratnakaran is known for his penchant for tactical play. His decisions, whether to play or sign peace is dictated purely by the position on the board and not by the standings of his rivals.

Give him a position which invites sharp combinations and Ratnakaran will never be found wanting. Himanshu Sharma learnt this fact the hard way after losing the eighth round encounter and with it, the overnight half-point lead, in the Commonwealth chess championship here.

Ratnakaran, who needed loads of luck to beat Parimarjan Negi on Friday, was in full flow on this day. He sacrificed a knight and then forced Himanshu to give up his queen for a rook before tightening the noose in this action-packed game lasting 36 moves.

After a resurgent Ratnakaran emerged as the new leader with seven points, Woman Grandmaster Nisha Mohota left Bangladesh Grandmaster Reefat Bin Sattar licking his wounds and led the ladies title-race with 6.5 points.

With two rounds to go, six players — Himanshu, Surya Shekhar Ganguly, Nisha, R. B. Ramesh, Vikramaditya Kamble and Sriram Jha — share the second spot at 6.5 points.

The dramatic sequence of results, involving GMs, continued at the Siri Fort Sports Complex hall continued with Pravin Thipsay and Dibyendu Barua joining the casualty list.

Meanwhile, Karnataka’s M. S. Thejkumar made his first IM norm by drawing with Deep Sengupta.

The results (Indians unless stated): Eighth round: K. Ratnakaran (7) bt Himanshu Sharma (6.5); Surya Shekhar Ganguly (6.5) bt S. Arun Prasad (5.5); S. Kidambi (6) drew with Gawain Jones (Eng) (6); Reefat Bin Sattar (Ban) (5.5) lost to Nisha Mohota (6.5); D. Harika (6) drew with P. Konguvel (6); R. B. Ramesh (6.5) bt Lanka Ravi (5.5); Vikramaditya Kamble (6.5) bt Pravin Thipsay (5.5); Shashikant Kutwal (5.5) lost to Sriram Jha (6.5); Deep Sengupta (6) drew with M. S. Thejkumar (6); Abhijit Kunte (6) bt V. Saravanan (5); R. R. Laxman (5.5) drew with Parimarjan Negi (5.5); Abdullah Al-Rakib (Ban) (6) bt Arghyadip Das (5); Dibyendu Barua (5) lost to P. Karthikeyan (6); Abhishek Das (6) bt G. Rohit (5); Abhijeet Gupta (6) bt S. Nitin (5); Tejas Bakre (6) bt Mary Ann Gomes (5); Tunveer Gillani (Pak) (5.5) drew with P. D. S. Girinath (5.5); J. Ramakrishna (5.5) drew with Niaz Murshed (Ban) (5.5); Soumya Swaminathan (5.5) drew with Aleksandar Wohl (Aus) (5.5); Bitan Banerjee (5.5) drew with D. V. Prasad (5.5); Ramnath Bhuvanesh (5) lost to Mahmood Lodhi (Pak) (6); M. G. Gahan (5) lost to Deepan Chakkravarthy (6); K. Priyadarshan (4.5) lost to Neelotpal Das (5.5); David Smerdon (Aus) (5) drew with Prasenjit Datta (5); M. R. Venkatesh (5.5) bt Debashis Das (4.5); Tania Sachdev (5.5) bt S. Mari Arul (4.5); Saptarshi Roy (4.5) lost to R. Premnath (5.5); Aminul Islam (Ban) (5) drew with Shekhar Sahu (5); Nassir Wajih (5.5) bt R. Ashwath (4.5); Kruttika Nadig (5) drew with Roktim Bandyopadhyay (5).

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