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Chess
Viji dazzles with an impressive draw
By P. K. Ajith Kumar
S. Meenakshi who stunned IM Lanka Ravi (left) during their eighth round match in the Golden Jubilee International GM open chess tournament in Kozhikode on Saturday. - Photo: Ramesh Kurup
KOZHIKODE, DEC. 22. She relishes challenges, especially from men. India's first Woman Grandmaster, S. Vijayalakshmi, fought with dogged determination to hold Russia's Andrey Shariyazdanov to a draw in the eighth round of the AICF Golden Jubilee International GM open chess tournament at Taj Residency on Saturday.
M.R. Venkatesh also did well to get half-a-point from top seed Evgeny Vladimirov of Kazakhstan, who hardly enjoys playing in the new time control.
With three rounds remaining, second seed Krishnan Sasikiran, fifth seed Ehsan Ghaem Maghami of Iran and tenth seed Marat Dhzumaev of Uzbekistan shared the lead with six points each.
Half-a-point behind them were third seed Maxim Sorokin of Argentina, sixth seed Tahir Vakdhidov of Uzbekistan, seventh seed Pendyala Harikrishna, Alexander Lyssenko of Russia and Prathamesh Mokal, who shocked Humpy.
In the ninth round on Sunday, Maghami meets Marat, Sasikiran takes on Sorokin, Vakhidov plays Lyssenko and Mokal faces Harikrishna.
Vijayalakshmi's younger sister Meenakshi stunned IM Lanka Ravi, who himself looked so stunned after blundering his way to a mating net.
IMs D.V. Prasad and P. Konguvel also suffered shock defeats from P. Magesh Chandran and Sashikanth Kutwal respectively, while Abhijit Kunte played badly for a second successive day, and lost to Maghami.
The 24-year-old GM from Pune adopted Sicilian defence and found himself in trouble soon enough as a result of a few weak moves. He lost a pawn on the 23rd move and had to give a piece too before resigning on the 31st move, unable to avert a mating threat.
``I think he made many mistakes,'' said the cheerful Iranian, the first and only GM from his country. ``His queen was badly placed and I had the space advantage too, from early on.''
On the top board, Sasikiran, who employed Caro-Kann defence against Dzhumaev, could not quite convert his advantage in position and time into a victory as the rook-knight against rook ending was drawn, predictably, after 86 moves.
Interestingly, it was a similar position in the Shariyazdanov-Vijayalakshmi game, played from a Nimzo-Indian Defence, which went up to 103 moves before the inevitable end.
The Chennai girl defended correctly with her only piece, and later admitted she was happy with her day's effort.
Mokal played Panov-Botwinnik attack against Humpy's Caro-Kann defence and picked up three pawns on his way to a comprehensive victory in 47 moves. Venkatesh, who played Anti- Marshall, drew with Vladimirov in a minor piece ending after 62 moves.
The results (eighth round, Indians unless otherwise specified): Marat Dzhumaev (Uzb) 6 drew with Krishan Sasikiran 6; Ehsan Ghaem Maghami (IRI) 6 bt Abhijit Kunte 5; Pendyala Harikrishna 5.5 drew with Tahir Vakdhidov (Uzb) 5.5; M.R. Venkatesh 5 drew with Evgeny Vladimirov (Kaz) 5; Maxim Sorokin (Arg) 5.5 bt S. Kidambi 4.5; Andrey Shariyazdanov 5 drew with S. Vijayalakshmi 5; Prathamesh Mokal 5.5 bt Koneru Humpy 4.5; R.B. Ramesh 5 drew with K. Visweswaran 5; Alexander Lyssenko (Rus) 5.5 bt G.B. Prakash 4.5; P. Magesh Chandran 5 bt D.V. Prasad 4; Pravin Thipsay 4.5 drew with Dinesh Kumar Sharma; C.S. Gokhale 4 drew with T.S. Ravi 4.5; Sashikant Kutwal 4.5 bt P. Konguvel 3.5; Sandipan Chanda 4 drew with C.J. Aravind 4; Sriram Jha 3.5 bt Bhagyashree Thipsay 3.5; S. Meenakshi 4.5 bt Lanka Ravi 3.5; Roktim Bandyopadhyaya 4.5 bt M.B. Muraleedharan 3.5; Sekhar Sahu 4 bt V. Saravanan 3; R.R. Laxman 3 lost to S. Satyapragyan 4; N. Sanjay 3.5 drew with Rahul Shetty 3.5; G. Rohit 3 lost to Swati Ghate 4; Neeraj Kumar Mishra 4 bt Joy Antony 3; G.N. Gopal 3 drew with Aarthie Ramaswamy 3.5; G. Dinesh Kumar 2.5 lost to Varughese Koshy 3.5; Suvrajit Saha 3 drew with Deepan Chakravarthy 3; K. Vijay Keerthi 3 bt Himanshu Kumar 2; Akshayraj Kore 1.5 lost to Atanu Lahiri 2.5; K. Narayanan 1.5 lost to Vedant Goswamy 3; Deep Sengupta 3 bt T.D.R. Peiris 1.
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