Monday, Oct 14, 2002
Monday, Oct 14, 2002 |
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Chess
By V.V. Subrahmanyam
Subbaraman Meenakshi of India ponders over her next move against Peng Zhaoquin at the World Cup of chess 2002 at RFC near Hyderabad on Sunday . — Photo: P.V. Sivakumar.
Chennai girl Subbaraman Meenakshi moved one step closer to qualifying for the knockout phase with a creditable win with black against Chinese GM Peng Zhaoqin while Koneru Humpy registered an incredible fourth straight win outwitting Bhagyasree Thipsay in the fourth round games. Not very often does a player get a chance to test the intensive preparations in a particular opening of choice in this level of tournament. Meenakshi was visibly thrilled to revel in her prepared line of c4 opening against Peng. For someone who strongly believes that her mental preparations were much better Meenakshi, who shocked the World champion in the earlier rounds, showed her tactical superiority. Her opponent overlooked a position wherein she gave up her `d4' pawn. Then both of them slipped into time pressure and in the subsequent complications of end-game, there was very little for Zhaoqin to do but to resign after 61 moves when the position was clearly weakened. Meenakshi now needs a draw in her final round game on Monday to move to the next phase. Meanwhile, Koneru Humpy has become the youngest player ever to qualify for the knockout phase. In a Dutch Defence transposed into Queen's Indian variation, Humpy took maximum advantage of her two active bishops and capitalised on the opponent's flawed move - Nh6. This created positional imbalance for Bhagyasree's kingside pawn structure and in the middle-game complications Humpy attacked consistently to come up with white square bishop and queen mating forcing the seasoned Bhagyasree resign after 36 moves. . By his own confession, defending champion Viswanathan Anand, was not really in a desperate position as he has one more game to qualify. But, Anand (Elo 2755) gave yet another object lesson in dishing out high quality fare in his brilliant win against Al Modiahki of Qatar (Elo 2550) to pick 2.5 points from four games after the loss to Krishnan Sasikiran in the second round. In a Sicilian Defence Najdorff Variation, Anand was in a pre-determined mood to attack and thrived on the obscure variation of f4 opted by the rival. Though Al Modiahki tried to push his pawns on queenside and tried to play on `c' file, his `e4' pawn became the prime target for Anand. The Indian genius literally blew away the centre with his masterly move `e5'. After that Anand even sacked `d5 ` which opened up the diagonals giving ample play for the champion player. Anand revelled in attacking game displaying his absolute mastery. Anand offered his queen which was predictably not accepted by Al Modiahki. The results: Men: Group A: Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukr) 2 bt Iuladchev Saidali (Uzb) 0.5, Ye Jiangchuan (Chn) 2 bt Vescovi Giovanni (Bra) 2.5, Macieja Bartilomiej (Pol) 2.5 drew with Malakhov Vladimir (Rus) 2.5. Group B: Radjabov Teimour (Azr) 2 lost to Dreev Alexdander (Rus) 3, Azmaipardashvilli Zurab (Geo) 2 bt Kobese Watu (RSA) 1, Rubievsky Sergei (Rus) 2.5 drew with Yermilnsky Alex (USA) 2.5. Group C: Sasikiran Krishnan (Ind) 2.5 lost to Kasimdzhanov Rustam (Uzb) 2.5, Al Modiahki (Qat) 2 lost to Anand Viswanathan (Ind) 2.5, Hamdouch Hichem (Mar) 2 bt Xu Juan (Chn) 0.5. Group D: Beliavsky Alexander G (Slo) 3 drew with Short Nigel D (Eng) 2.5, Ganguly Surya Sekhar (Ind) 2 drew with Harikrishna P (Ind) 0.5, Morozevich Alexander (Rus) 1 lost to Ehlvest Jann (Est) 3. Women: Group A: Vikorija Cmilyte (Ltu) 2 bt Harika Dronavalli (Ind) 1, Li Roufan (Chn) 2.5 drew with Chidubanidze Maia (Geo) 1.5, Kovalevskaya Ekaterina (Rus) 2.5 drew with Svetlana Matveeva (Rus) 2.5. Group B: Xu Juhua (Chn) 2.5 bt Pia Cramling (Swe) 1.5, Stefanova Antoneta (Bul) 3.5 bt Nino Khurtsidze (Geo) 1.5, S. Vijayalakshmi (Ind) 1.5 bt Swathi Ghate (Ind) 1.5. Group C: Alexandra Kosteniuk (Rus) 2 bt Nana Iosliani (Geo) 1.5, Stepovaia Dianchenko (Rus) 1.5 lost to Irina Krush (USA) 3, Koneru Humpy (Ind) 4 bt Bhagyashree Thipsay (Ind) 0. Group D: Peng Zhaoqin (Ned) 1 lost to S. Meenakshi (Ind) 3, Wang Pin (Chn) 3 bt Dworakowska Joanna (Pol) 1.5, Zhu Chen (Chn) 2.5 bt Aarthie Ramaswamy (Ind) 1.
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