Sensational day for Sengupta

By Rakesh Rao

NAGPUR, JULY 1. Deep Sengupta may have won the World (under-12) title last year but what he accomplished on the second day of the National `B' chess championship here was no less memorable. As if his stunning victory over local favourite Anup Deshmukh was not creditable enough, he returned in the afternoon to put it across top seed R. B. Ramesh.

Ranked 80th in the field, Sengupta's back-to-back victories over two International Masters saw him share an all-win record with 14 others. The toppers are: Sandeepan Chanda, Sriram Jha, Varugeese Koshy, B. T. Muraleedharan, P. Magesh Chandran, Vikramaditya Kamble, M. R. Venkatesh, C. S. Gokhale, J. Ramakrishna, Gurpreet Pal Singh, Pankaj Joshi, Swati Ghate, S. K. Rathod and Shashikant Kutwal.

For Ramesh, who has failed to qualify for the National `A' for the last two years despite playing the National `B' as the top seed, it was a highly forgettable day. He was held in the morning by the two-time former National junior champion Pramod Kumar Singh. If the result hurt, what followed in the afternoon left him licking his wounds.

In the Tarrash variation of French Defence adopted by Sengupta, Ramesh's miscalculation cost him the game. He sacrificed his bishop after anticipating compensation in the form of Sengupta's queen. But the ploy backfired as Sengupta quickly exchanged the queens and hung on to the advantage of an extra minor piece. Ramesh saw no point in continuing and gave up after 31 moves.

Earlier, too, Sengupta was a bit lucky against Deshmukh. In time- pressure, Deshmukh mishandled a seemingly better position. But all credit to Sengupta who found the right continuation and won.

Sengupta's victories overshadowed the defeats of fifth seed Woman Grandmaster S. Vijayalakshmi and International Master Sharad Tilak.

On the other hand, the first day strugglers, G. B. Prakash, V. Saravanan and Lanka Ravi - seeded two, four and 13 respectively - scored two victories each on this day. The trio was part of the bunch which followed the leading pack.

Five-time National women's champion Vijayalakshmi of Indian Airlines crashed against the seasoned N. Neelakanthan before tasting victory over Chaitanya Vaidya. Neelakanthan's joy was shortlived as he lost to S. K. Rathod in the afternoon.

Joining Vijayalakshmi on two points was Atanu Lahiri, seeded eight. Lahiri, who drew the first two rounds despite getting promising positions, did not take long against Shahid Azmat to taste his first victory.

Statistically, 111 players won the first round. Out of these, only 41 managed to win again in the second round. The number of those winning their third round, as well, has come down to just 15. The trend clearly suggests that a clear leader should emerge sooner than later.

The results:

Third round: Sandeepan Chanda (3) bt Ashwani Tiwari (2); S. Kidambi (2.5) drew with Saurabh Kherdekar (2.5); R. S. Gupta (2) lost to Sriram Jha (3); T. S. Ravi (2.5) drew with Preetham R. Sharma (2.5); R. Bala Subramanium (2.5) drew with Dinesh Kumar Sharma (2.5); Anupama Gokhale (2) lost to Varugeese Koshy (3); V. Hariharan (2) lost to B. T. Muralidharan (3); Argydip Das (2.5) drew with Suvrajit Saha (2.5); Jayant Gokhale (2.5) drew with Prathamesh Mokal (2.5); Ketan Boricha (2) lost to P. Magesh Chandran (3); Vikramaditya Kamble (3) bt Sharad Tilak (2); M. R. Venkatesh (3) bt B. S. Shivananda (2); Prasenjit Dutta (2) lost to C. S. Gokhale (3); Ravikumar (2.5) drew with K. Ratnakaran (2.5); J. Ramakrishna (3) bt Manoj Mishra (2); Gurpreet Pal Singh (3) bt Manoj Mishra (2); Manish Joshi (2) lost to Pankaj Joshi (3); D. P. Singh (2) lost to Swati Ghate (3); S. K. Rathod (3) bt N. Neelakanthan (2); Surinder Sharma (2) lost to Shashikant Kutwal (3); R. B. Ramesh (1.5) lost to Deep Sengupta (3); Dharmeshwar Pegu (1.5) lost to G. B. Prakash (2.5); S. Ram Krishnan (1.5) lost to V. Saravanan (2.5); Laxmana D. Rao (2) drew with Neelotpal Das (2); S. Satyapragyan (2) drew with K. Gopalkrishnan (2); Lanka Ravi (2.5) bt Virender Singh Negi (1.5); Adway Choudhari (2) drew with Nassir Wajih (2); N. Sudhakar Babu (2.5) bt Siddharth (1.5); Vishal Sareen (2.5) bt Ajay Pandey (1.5); Satchidanand Soman (2) drew with Sudhir Kumar Sinha (2); Rahul Shetty (2.5) bt Poobesh Anand (1.5); Saptarshri Roy (2.5) bt Tania Sachdev (2.5); Vedant Goswami (2.5) bt Utpal Baruah (2.5); Roktim Bandopadhyaya (2.5) bt Harish Sharma (1.5); E. P. Nirmal (1.5) lost to G. B. Joshi (2.5).

Second round: Pramod Kumar Singh drew with R. B. Ramesh; Ebenezer Joseph lost to Sandeepan Chanda; N. Neelakantan bt S. Vijayalakshmi; Nirav Rajasuba lost to S. Kidambi; D. Ravishankar drew with S. Satyapragyan; Sriram Jha bt Manas Parida; M. K. Panigrahi lost to T. S. Ravi; Dinesh Sharma bt Kiran Panditrao; Nassir Wajih drew with Dharmeshwar Pegu; K. Gopalkrishnan drew with Sudhakar Babu; V. Koshy bt Himanshu Sharma; B. T. Muralidharan bt Sayantan Dutta; Virender Negi drew with Vishal Sareen; Suvrajit Saha bt Pradip Ghosh; Deep Sengupta bt Anup Deshmukh; Siddharth drew with Satchidanand Soman; Shankar Roy lost to Surinder Sharma; Dilip Pagey lost to Jayant Gokhale; P. Magesh Chandran bt P. Rajesh; Sharad Tilak bt B. V. Prakash;

Rashmin Pulekar lost to M. R. Venkatesh; C. S. Gokhale bt Nasir Ali; Ajay Pandey drew with Saptarshi Roy; Sudhir Kumar Sinha drew with Vedant Goswami; M. Srinivasa Rao lost to Ravikumar; Deepan Chakraborthi bt Vikas Sharma; Arjun Tiwari lost to Gurpreet Pal Singh; Pankaj Joshi bt Dilip Das; Tania Sachdev drew with Roktim Bandopadhyaya; Swati Ghate bt Pranjal Das.

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