The Hindu : Anup, Nassir in joint lead

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Apr 18, 2002

Sport

Sport - Chess

Anup, Nassir in joint lead

NEW DELHI APRIL 17. International Master Anup Deshmukh of LIC and Nassir Wajih of Railways were in the joint lead with perfect scores, after the second round of the Global Networks International Rating chess tournament here at the Russian Cultural Centre on Wednesday.

Candidate IM Vishal Sareen of LIC, G.B. Joshi of Indian Airlines and Akshay Kumar Jain of Delhi were tied for the second spot with 1.5 points each, in the 14-player all-play-all tournament.

Deshmukh made a stupendous start, beating top seed Sudhakar Babu of Indian Bank in the first round. Playing white, Anup was up against Babu's pet Leningrad Dutch and went for the kill on the queenside right from the start.

Under pressure, Babu lost a lot of time on his clock before he could wriggle himself out of it. However, Deshmukh sacrificed a piece in the later stages of the middlegame and won a handful of pawns as compensation. Babu eventually lost on time on the 38th move.

Deshmukh easily won the second round game against upcoming Sanchit Agarwal with white pieces. Nassir Wajih took advantage of a simple oversight by Gurpreet Pal Singh of Railways in the first round and won a rook through a knight fork in an otherwise equal position.

Gurpreet had no choice but to call in a day. Wajih continued with his good form and outmanoeuvred D.S. Negi of Delhi in the next round.

The results:

Second round: Anup Deshmukh (2) bt Sanchit Agarwal (0.5); D.S. Negi (1) lost to Nassir Wajih (2); N.S. Babu (0.5) drew with Vishal Sareen (1.5); G.B. Joshi (1.5) bt Karun Duggal (0); G.P. Singh (0.5) drew with S.K. Sinha (1); V. S. Negi (1) drew with A.K. Jain (1.5); Navneet Sharma (0) lost to Sankalp Modwal (1).

First round: N. Sudhakar Babu lost to A. Deshmukh; S. Agarwal drew with V.S. Negi; A.K. Jain bt N. Sharma; S. Modwal lost to D.S. Negi; N. Wajih bt G.P. Singh; S. K. Sinha drew with G.B. Joshi; K. Duggal lost to V. Sareen.— Our Sports Reporter

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