Konguvel gets the better of Harikrishna

By Rakesh Rao

NEW DELHI, JUNE 2. It took an unheralded Y. Pratibha's gritty performance to end Pallavi Shah's recent joy ride.

Fresh from her surprise success at the Asian Zonal championship, Pallavi crashed to an unanticipated loss to become the first casualty in the opening round of the National `A' chess championship at the CDCS Eventspecific hall here on Saturday.

Among the men, third-seed P. Harikrishna had to surrender to former champion P. Konguvel during an eventful second round. Besides Konguvel, others who reached 1.5 points were, top-seed K. Sasikiran, holder Abhijit Kunte, Pravin Thipsay, Lanka Ravi, Surya Shekhar Ganguly and Atanu Lahiri.

But it was the defeat of Pallavi - if not the frequent power failures of the morning session - which remained the talking point of the day.

Pratibha seems to have this uncanny knack of hitting the headlines. Last year, when S. Vijayalakshmi was on a roll, Pratibha inflicted a surprise defeat on the holder. Today, it was the turn of Pallavi, rated nearly 100 points higher than Pratibha, to be at the receiving end.

In the Najdorf variation of Sicilian Defence, Pratibha overcame an anxious phase when she came under pressure while approaching the first time-control and nailed Pallavi in 43 moves. Pallavi, in fact, paid the penalty for overlooking the possibility of Pratibha getting a passed pawn on the `d' file. What more, Pratibha won another pawn to get another passed pawn on the `b' file, too. It became too much for Pallavi and she resigned on the 43rd move.

Harika holds Anupama

Another surprise came when five-time champion Anupama Gokhale was held by D. Harika. In a fine combination, the youngster sacrificed an exchange and claimed it right back to leave the seasoned Anupama a wee bit puzzled. Thereafter, positionally, draw looked the best results and before long, the players too agreed to sign the peace treaty.

Swati Ghate showed no mercy for her Bhagyashree Thipsay, her former city-mate from Sangli. Thipsay's position deteriorated gradually in the middle-game and became near- hopeless soon after the first time-control. ``I am still not too comfortable with the new time-control,'' admitted Bhagyashree whose head-to-head results with Swati in the National championship now stands at 2- 2.

Swati was thankful to Bhagyashree for not complicating matters towards the end. ``I thought that it would take me a bit longer but I am glad Bhagyashree overlooked another threat and let me win early,'' said Swati, who was threatening to queen one of her centre-pawns before her famed rival chose to resign.

Holder S. Vijayalakshmi and sister Meenakshi opened their campaigns by posting easy victories. Vijayalakshmi nailed Nisha Mohata despite playing rather passively while Meenakshi outwitted Dolan Champa Bose in the end-game. The two sisters now meet each other on Sunday and a draw is a foregone conclusion.

Aarthie downs Saheli

The other winner of the day was Aarthie Ramaswamy. The former World (under-18) champion won a topsy-turvy game against Saheli Barua which ended with the latter claiming a draw, but in vain.

For Harikrishna, it turned out to be a far from perfect day. In the morning, he looked in deep trouble against Atanu Lahiri but was helped by a timely power-failure when in time-trouble and also by his opponent's inability to find the winning line in a hurry. Though Harikrishna managed to escape with a draw in the first round, he had not such luck in the evening.

In Pelican, Harikrishna did manage to get a promising- looking passed pawn on the `c' file. Konguvel was equal to the challenge as he kept the pressure on Harikrishna's kingside and eventually managed to win the `c' pawn. Thereafter the focus was on Harikrishna's weakened `e' pawn and soon the writing was on the wall. In the rook-and-pawn ending, Konguvel had two extra pawns and Harikrishna had no choice but to resign.

Kunte missed a possible winning position after overlooking a knight-move against Dibyendu Barua before the match ended in draw. Sasikiran played a brilliant endgame to nail Murugan in a minor-piece ending.

The results:

Men: Second round: Dibyendu Barua (2494) 1 drew with Abhijit Kunte (2568) 1; Sriram Jha (2390) 0.5 lost to Pravin Thipsay (2453) 1.5; G.B. Prakash (2453) 1 bt Saptarishi Roy (2306) 0.5; D.V. Prasad (2440) 1 drew with Surya Shekhar Ganguly (2456) 1; Neeraj Kumar Mishra (2321) 1 lost to Lanka Ravi (2381) 1.5; Atanu Lahiri (2391) 1.5 bt Nassir Wajih (2371) 0; P. Konguvel (2383) 1.5 P. Harikrishna (2504) 0.5; K. Sasikiran (2611) 1.5 bt K. Murugan (2390) 0.5; Neelotpal Das (2423) 0.5 drew with Shekhar Sahu (2325) 0.5; V. Saravanan (2428) 0 bye;

First round: Sahu drew with Sasikiran; Murugan drew with Konguvel; Harikrishna drew with Lahiri; Wajih lost to Mishra; Lanka Ravi drew with Prasad; Ganguly bt Prakash; Roy drew with Jha; Thipsay drew with Barua; Kunte bt Saravanan; Das bye.

Women: First round: Anupama Gokhale (2249) drew with D. Harika; Y. Pratibha (2069) bt Pallavi Shah (2164); Dolan Champa Bose (2187) lost to S. Meenakshi (2248); S. Vijayalakshmi (2424) bt Nisha Mohata (2257); Swati Ghate (2271) bt Bhagyashree Thipsay (2241); Aarthie Ramaswamy (2291) bt Saheli Dhar-Barua (2224); Sai Meera-Ravi (2162) vs M.R. Sangeetha (2009) will be played on June 7.

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