Sport - Chess

Impressive victory for Thipsay
By Rakesh Rao

Pravin Thipsay (right) is about to make a move on road to victory against Marat Dzhumaev in the sixth round of the International Grandmasters tournament at Raipur on Sunday. - Photo: R.V. Moorthy

RAIPUR, MARCH 10. Even as safety-first methods came easy to most players on the leading boards, Pravin Thipsay chose to be different.

The country's oldest Grandmaster walked the tight-rope for a while before racing away to an emphatic victory past a grim Uzbek GM Marat Dzhumaev in the sixth round of the International Grandmasters chess tournament here at Sibbal Palace on Sunday.

On the top table, K. Sasikiran maintained his overnight one-point lead following a 22-move draw with sixth- seeded Russian GM Andrey Shariyazdanov. This result, with black pieces, however, broke Sasikiran's string of five victories.

Five players - Shariyazdanov, Dibyendu Barua, Ehsan Ghaem Maghami, Thipsay and N. Sudhakar Babu - shared the second spot with 4.5 points each. Ten players are on four points.

Of the lot, only Thipsay made it with a win in a fiercely tactical battle lasting 32 moves. Dzhumaev, playing rashly at times, consumed too much time to get out of trouble and eventually blundered twice in succession in his attempt to beat the clock. The victory was Thipsay's third in succession.

With only seven of the top 20 boards producing outright verdicts, excitement was at a premium today, although from India's point of view, there were a few encouraging results.

P. Magesh Chandran did very well to hold top-seeded Kazakh Kostur Pavel in a dull 25-move contest, just as Babu managed against fifth seed Alexander Fominyh in 79 moves. Meanwhile, Barua was fairly lucky to escape with a draw against Maghami.

In some of the decisive matches on the top-10 boards, double-norm holders Uzbek Tahir Vakhidov, D.V. Prasad and Sandipan Chanda emerged winners in contrasting ways.

Vakhidov ended S. Meenakshi's pleasant run in 51 moves. Prasad declined Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury's draw-offer and eventually won in 88 moves whereas Chanda needed just 20 moves to brush aside the challenge of Suvrajit Saha, his mate from Kolkata.

The day also saw GMs Maxim Sorokin and Ruslan Sherbakov on the winning side after three successive draws.

Argentina's Sorokin, seeded three, was declared winner as P.D.S. Girinath ran out of time. Even otherwise, Sorokin was in a commanding position against a pondering opponent.

Sherbakov overcame the aggressive designs of Saurabh Kherdekar and coasted to victory. In this tactical battle, Sherbakov thrived on a calculation-error by the Nagpur-based Railwayman.

Woman Grandmaster S. Vijayalakshmi overpowered Shashikant Kutwal while WIM Nisha Mohota held Sriram Jha. However, there was no respite for WIM Swati Ghate. Facing young Vijay Keerthi, Swati crashed to her fifth loss in as many appearances. Her lone point is due to the fifth-round bye.

The results (Indians unless stated):

Sixth round: Andrey Shariyazdanov (Rus) (4.5) drew with K. Sasikiran (5.5); Dibyendu Barua (4.5) drew with Ehsan Ghaem Maghami (Ira) (4.5); Alexander Fominyh (Rus) (4) drew with N. Sudhakar Babu (4); P. Magesh Chandran (4) drew with Kotsur Pavel (Kaz) (4); Pravin Thipsay (4.5) bt Marat Dzhumaev (Uzb) (3.5); Lanka Ravi (4) drew with Abhijit Kunte (4); Neeraj Kumar Mishra (4) drew with Tejas Bakre (4); Tahir Vakhidov (Uzb) (4) bt S. Meenakshi (3); D.V. Prasad (4) bt Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury (4); Suvrajit Saha (3) lost to Sandipan Chanda (4); Deepan Chakkravarthy (3.5) drew with S. Kidambi (3.5); Nisha Mohota (3.5) drew with Sriram Jha (3.5); P. Konguvel (3.5) drew with Varugeese Koshy (3.5); P.D.S. Girinath (2.5) lost to Maxim Sorokin (Arg) (3.5); Saurabh Kherdekar (2.5) lost to Ruslan Sherbakov (Rus) (3.5); R.B. Ramesh (3) drew with C.J. Arvind (3); Shashikant Kutwal (2.5) lost to S. Vijayalakshmi (3.5); S. Satyapragyan (3) drew with Rahul Shetty (3); N. Sanjay (3) drew with Ravi Kumar (3); Deep Sengupta (3) drew with Prathmesh Mokal (3); Yogesh Gore (3) bt Anupama Gokhale (2.5); Anup Deshmukh (3) bt G.C. Anuruddha (Sri) (2); Eesha Karavade (2) lost to K. Ratnakaran (3); G.N. Gopal (3) bt Vedant Goswami (2); Saheli Dhar-Barua (2.5) drew with Keshav Shrestha (Nep) (2.5); Santosh Kaushik (2.5) bt Krishna Thapa (Nep) (2); Minhazuddin Ahmed (Ban) (1.5) lost to Jayant Gokhale (2.5); Himanshu Kumar (2.5) bt Kruttika Nadig (1.5); Swati Ghate (1) lost to Vijay Keerthi (2); Shamima Akhther Liza (Ban) (1) lost to T.S. Ravi (2); Abhijeet Gupta (1) lost to K. Narayanan (2); K. Visweswaran (1.5) bye.

Top-10 seventh round pairings: Sasikiran-Barua; Babu-Shariyazdanov; Maghami-Thipsay; Pavel-Prasad; Chanda-Fominyh; Magesh-Vakhidov; Kunte-Mishra; Bakre-Ravi; Sorokin-Konguvel; Sherbakov-Deepan.

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