R.B. Ramesh opens with a win

By Rakesh Rao

NAGPUR, JUNE 30. It was indeed testing times for those seeds trying to win back their places in the next National `A' championship. Jaded performances from some of the leading names provided unexpected joy to their unfancied rivals on the opening day of the National `B' chess championship at the Raisoni College of Engineering hall here on Saturday.

Even as the top six odd-numbered seeds, led by top ranked R.B. Ramesh, marched on, the even-numbered favourites failed to make a bright beginning with black pieces.

G.B. Prakash, V. Saravanan, Neelotpal Das and Atanu Lahiri, seeded two, four, six and eight, in that order, continued their poor run which had begun at the National `A' championship in New Delhi in the first fortnight of this month.

Prakash failed to make much headway in spite of winning a pawn against Senthil Kumaran. Saravanan had to force a draw through perpetual checks against Rohan Shandilya. Das played unimaginatively against Krishan Soni and Lahiri, after gaining a rook for nothing, overlooked the possibility of Pranjal Phukan drawing the match with the help of perpetual checks.

Among the lower seeds, Lanka Ravi, ranked 13th in the field, also began with a draw against Gourahari Mohapatra. But Sekhar Sahu, another veteran, was not so lucky.

A slightly indisposed Sahu, who had to return to this championship despite a spirited display in the National Capital, New Delhi, crashed to a quick loss against A.K. Verma. It is interesting to note that the 28-year-old from the Indian Air Force was one of the arbitors during Sahu's latest campaign in the National `A'.

N. Sanjay, seeded 17, fell to Satya Ranjan Patnaik, while Rahul Shetty was forced to share a point by M.R. Sangeetha, the lowest rated player in the 269 player-field, which includes 161 rated players. Y. Pratibha, who, like Sangeetha, was part of the women's National `A' recently, made Dinesh Kumar Sharma struggle but failed to stop the latter from winning. Among the unrated players, Swaraj Palit did well to hold K.V. Shantaram.

S. Vijayalakshmi, too, had no real trouble but S. Kidambi had to fight all the way before finding the winning plan against Vikrant Chole. Sriram Jha, seeded 10, was the highest seed to win with black pieces.

Even as the top boards produced some unexpected results, there was a very interesting `Battle of Generations' between the noted veteran Nasir Ali and 10-year-old Harika Dronavalli. Ali, one of the leading names in the 1950s and the 1960s, did manage to win after sacrificing a rook for knight but could not help admiring the fighting qualities of a girl younger enough to be his grand- daughter. Earlier, the championship was inaugurated at a simple but impressive ceremony by Air Marshall S. Raghvan, of the Maintenance Command. Vijayalakshmi, by virtue of being the country's first Woman Grandmaster, was extended the honour of taking the oath of the participants.

The results : First round: R.B. Ramesh bt Shubham Das; Senthil Kumaran drew with G.B. Prakash; Sandeepan Chanda bt R.C. Gupta; Rohan Shandilya drew with V. Saravanan; S. Vijayalakshmi bt Mayur Patel; Krishan Soni drew with Neelotpal Das; S. Kidambi bt Vikrant Chole; Pranjal Phukan drew with Atanu Lahiri; S. Satyapragyan bt Abhishek Das; Shahid Azmat lost to Sriram Jha; T.S. Ravi bt Chaitanya Vaidya; Y. Pratibha lost to Dinesh Kumar Sharma; Lanka Ravi drew with Gourahari Mohapatra; Sanjeev Biswas lost to Nassir Wajih; N. Sudhakar Babu bt Baisakhi Das; Ishmit Singh lost to Varghese Koshy; N. Sanjay lost to Satya Ranjan Patnaik; P.L. Sastry lost to B.T. Muralidharan; Vishal Sareen bt Saumitra Majumdar; J.E. Kavitha lost to Survrajit Saha; Anup Deshmukh bt Thanghiew Gillford; A.K. Verma bt Sekhar Sahu; Sachidanand Soman bt Harkamal Singh; K. Abhimod lost to Shankar Roy; Jayant Gokhale bt Wilson Cruz; S.K. Prasad lost to P. Magesh Chandran; Rahul Shetty drew with M.R. Sangeetha; Subrata Nandy Roy lost to Sharad Tilak; M.R. Venkatesh bt Gowher Rashid; Yashodhan Gogate lost to Chandrashekhar Gokhale; Saptarshi Roy bt Bidyut Handique; V. Haribalu bt T.V. Karthikeyan; Vedant Goswami bt S.M. Srivastava; Swaraj Palit drew with K.V. Shantaram; Ravi Kumar bt Abhijit Chutia; Arvinderpreet Singh lost to Deepan Chakraborty; Gurpreet Pal Singh bt Standrik Colaso; S.R. Mayekar lost to Pankaj Joshi; Roktim Bandopadhyay bt Aditya Vora; Rakesh Kumar Sinha lost to Swati Ghate; S.K. Rathod bt Liana Zohming; Avijit Banerjee lost to Shashikant Kutwal; R.S. Gupta bt Rajesh Handa; Kanwar Sandeep Singh lost to G.B. Joshi; C. Natarajan bt M. Vinay Kumar; Vipnesh Bharadwaj lost to Ashwani Tiwari; Nisha Mohota bt P.P. Insulkar; Nishant Thapa lost to Saurabh Kherdekar; R. Bala Subramanium bt Danny Zohminga Liana; Anju Sarkar lost to R. Pritham Sharma; Anupama Gokhale bt D. Lalit Kumar; Sriram Sarja lost to S. Meenakshi .

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