Sudhakar Babu lifts title

SALEM, MAY 24. International Master N.Sudhakar Babu of Indian Bank, Chennai, took the Golden Squares title with a round to spare with nine points at the end of the tenth round of the Golden Squares FIDE rated All India Open chess tournament held at Thyagarjar Polytechnic here on Wednesday.

Tej Kumar of Karnataka and Ebenezer Joseph of P & T (Audit) are in the second position with eight points each. Babu won today's game against S.Maria Arul of Southern Railways in 27 moves from the white side of the Benko gambit opening.

Playing his favourite gambit, Maria Arul appeared to have a reasonable compensation for the sacrificed pawn but a terrible oversight on the 26th move resulted in a loss of a knight and the game.

Tej Kumar continued with his spirited play to defeat the National under-14 champion M.R.Venkatesh of SPIC with the white piecs in 41 moves. Replying to Venkatesh's Grunfled defence with the Russian system, Tej Kumar finding the black queen off side launched a fierceful attack on black's castled position.

In mutual time scramble, Venkatesh lost his queen and soon after resigned. The second seed International Master N.K.Mishra finally caught up with the rest of the crowd after a 44-move win over C.Natarajan of ICF, Chennai, in a game arising out of an irregular queen pawn opening. Achieving easy equality with the black pieces, he brought about the victory in a rook and minor piece ending.

lThe results: N.Sudhakar Babu bt S.Mari Arul (9-7), Tej Kumar bt M.R.Venkatesh (8-7), Ebenezer Joseph bt S.C.Subramanian (8.6.5), N.K.Mishra bt C.Natarajan (7.5-6.5), Roktim Bandopadyay bt Valay Parikh (.7.5-6.5), K.Visweswaran bt R.Preetham (7.5-6.5), A.Shankar bt D.P.Singh (7.5-6.5), R.C.Saptarishi bt Ram S.Krishnan (7.5-6.5), K.Chakravarthi bt Sowmyaranjan Misra (7.5- 6.5).

P.Mahesh Chandran drew with Sanjay Battacharya (6.5-7), D.Ganesh drew with S.K.Sinha (6.5-6.5), S.Poobesh Anand bt S.Anand Kumar (7-6), Yashpal Singh bt J.E.Kavitha (7-6), Santanu Lahiri bt S.Bharath (7-6).

A.Sudhir bt Sanjay Verma (6.5-5.5), Safira Shanaz bt R.Naveen (6.5-5.5), S.Ravichandran bt R.Raghuraman (6.5-5.5), A.Suresh Kumar drew with Rupankar Nath (6-6), Swati Mohota bt Venkat (6.5- 5.5).

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