Indians caught napping, gift free points

DORTMUND, JULY 13. Inattentiveness to the playing schedule cost the three Indians in the Grandmaster Open dearly when they conceded second round walkovers on Friday.

Strangely all three of them were awake but did not bother to check the playing schedule. Normally Open games begin at 11 a.m. and go on for seven hours. The three Indians, Grandmaster Abhijit Kunte, IMs Devaki Prasad and Ponnuswamy Konguvel thought games start at 2 p.m. like in the super category event.

The lady arbiter told The Hindu, ``we had a problem, the Indians overslept and did not show up before walkovers were awarded.''

All three of them were up for an early breakfast at the hotels and then went out shopping for an electric adaptor plug to use the Indian three pin electric connectors for their laptop computers. All chess players carry laptop computers to prepare before their games. Prasad was planning to surf the Internet at a cyber cafe.

Both Prasad and Konguvel are in a tight corner as their Grandmaster norm chances took a beating due to this forfeit loss. Kunte who is a third seed and is playing for the title will now have to play the event handicapped by this vital loss.

Torsten Schmidt (seeded 34), Jurgen Kaufeld (50)and Martin Siepmann (81) received full points for free from Kunte, Prasad and Konguvel respectively.

- Our Chess Correspondent

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Sport
Previous : A move in quest of quality coaching
Next     : The deadly dilemma of being V.V.S. Laxman