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Shetty snatches sole lead

By Our Sports Reporter

KOZHIKODE AUG. 18. Rahul Shetty won a staggering 70 Elo points from four Grandmaster tournaments between January and April this year, as he finally completed his International Master title.

Then competing in the Air Travel Trophy FIDE rating all-India chess tournament here must be a bit like playing in district cricket league after a Test series against Australia, but the Indian Airlines veteran from Mumbai has shown he is focussed enough, as he moved into the soled lead at the end of the seventh round at Taj Residency on Sunday.

On a day which saw some bright sunshine after a few days of heavy rain, he notched up two wins to snatch the lead from T.S. Ravi of Indian Oil. With four rounds remaining, the top-seeded Shetty had six points, half-a-point ahead of Ravi, the second seed, who drew both his games. G.B. Joshy of Indian Airlines had five points.

Playing on the black side of a Queen's Gambit Accepted set-up, Shetty was too good for Purabi Sinha of Assam, who was all at sea after doing fairly well in the opening. A series of weak moves in the middle-game show her position going from bad to worse, before she gave up after 28 moves, facing a mating threat. Shetty had it easy in the morning too, against the local lad, K. Lakshminarayanan, who adopted Pirc Defence and failed to put up a decent resistance. The Kerala player, though, did post a win in the afternoon, mating an out-of-form Parimarjan Negi, who employed Sicilian Defence, in 49 moves, after picking up three pawns on the way.

The day was even worse for Lakshminarayanan's younger brother, K. Ratnakaran, seeded third, who lost to Sayantan Dutta of Bengal in the morning. Dutta, who adopted Sicilian Defence, made Ratnakarn pay dearly for a premature attack with his queen and rook. White's pieces were not developed and his queen-side was opened by young Dutta, who moved to 3.5 points. Not a bad show when you consider that he had to give away two points as bye, as he reported late for the tournament.

Like Dutta, his teammate Argyadip Das also had to conceded two games but he too has scored 3.5, after holding Ratnakaran to a draw in 51 moves of French Defence. Das had another creditbale draw, earlier in the day, with Ravi.

The results:

Seventh round: Purabi Sinha (Asm) 1 lost to Rahul Shetty (IA) 6; G.N. Gopal (Ker) 3.5 drew with M.B. Muraleedharan (Ker) 3.5; Sayantan Dutta (Ben) 3.5 bt Saimeera Ravi (IB) 2.5; Argyadip Das (Ben) 3.5 drew with K. Ratnakaran (Tal) 3.5; G.B. Joshi (IA) 5 drew with T.S. Ravi (IO) 5.5; K. Lakshminarayanan (Ker) 2.5 bt Parimarjan Negi (Del) 2.

Sixth round: Shetty bt Lakshminarayanan; Negi lost to Joshi; Ravi drew with Das; Ratnakaran lost to Dutta; Saimeera bt Gopal; Muraleedharan bt Purabi.

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