The Hindu : Poobesh and Ramakrishna record impressive victories

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, May 21, 2003

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Sport - Chess

Poobesh and Ramakrishna record impressive victories

By Arvind Aaron

CHENNAI May 20. National under-18 champion Poobesh Anand of Madurai and J. Ramakrishna of Andhra Pradesh scored over higher-rated opponents in round five to jointly lead the Adyar Times FIDE-rated Open chess tournament being played here at Kumararani Meena Muthiah College of Arts and Science in Gandhi Nagar, Chennai on Tuesday.

Poobesh and Ramakrishna have maximum five points and four rounds remain to be played in this nine-round Swiss format event. In the third place with 4.5 points are top seed R.B. Ramesh of Indian Oil, V. Saravanan of Bharat Petroleum, and giant-killer A.L. Kasi of Post and Telegraph.

Poobesh, presently a student of Loyola College in Chennai won in 43 moves with the black pieces by staying ahead of the complications that his opponent Visweswaran introduced in the Sicilian defence, Rauser variation. The younger star won two pawns that forced Visweswaran to give up.

Ramakrishna, the eleventh seed overcame defending champion and eighth seed R. Balasubramaniam of ICF with an attack against the uncastled king. Ramakrishna hurled his king side pawns against the Pirc defence and later won a rook for knight advantage. Balasubramaniam transposed the game into a Sicilian dragon but was all at sea and paid for not being able to castle in 43 moves.

British champion Ramesh benefited when his opponent Syed Anwar Shazuli lost his patience and sacrificed a rook for knight and pawn in the Caro-Kann defence, Panov-Botvinnik attack. Rather than defend with a bad bishop and get crushed, Shazuli tried to give up material but it went in vain as Ramesh sacrificed a pawn and pounced on the dark square weakness to hunt black's king.

In the adjacent table, Ramesh's older brother and GM-elect, G.B. Prakash of Indian Bank went down unexpectedly to Kasi with the white pieces after his rook was bottled up in the middle of the board. Prakash trooped his rook into the black territory to obtain an advantage but careless play thereafter accounted for his loss in 54 moves. Kasi has had a good run making a draw against Saravanan and now has a win against Prakash.

The five International Masters who scored two points from five games yesterday did better with three wins and two defeats.

Wednesday will see Ramakrishna and Poobesh battling it out in the morning session. Endurance will matter as there are two games slated for that day.

Important results (round five): K. Visweswaran 4 lost to S. Poobesh Anand 5, J.Ramakrishna 5 bt R. Balasubramaniam 3.5, R.B. Ramesh 4.5 bt Syed Anwar Shazuli 3.5, G.B. Prakash 3.5 lost to A.L. Kasi 4.5, V. Saravanan 4.5 bt K. Ganesan 3.5, R.R. Laxman 4 bt K.V. Shantharam 3, C. Delphin 3 lost to Sundararajan Kidambi 4, M. Vinoth Kumar 3 lost to Deepan Chakravarthi 4, K. Gopalakrishnan 3.5 drew with R.P. Senthil Kumaran 3.5, M. Priyadharshini 3 lost to G. Dinesh Kumar 4, E.P. Nirmal 4 bt V. Tejasvi 3, M.R. Sangeetha 3.5 drew with P. Rajesh 3.5, S.Sridhar 3.5 drew with Dwarak Krishnan 3.5, P. Phoobalan 3 drew with R.V. Venkatakrishnan 3, J. Venkataramana 3.5 bt R. Parthiban 2.5, P. Priya 3.5 bt R. Aanandh 2.5, P. Malarselvi 3 drew with H. Nilavoli 3, Devendra Kumar 2.5 lost to Arun Hariharan 3.5, R. Rajesh 3 drew with R. Aswin 3, R.S. Arun Srinivas 2.5 lost to B. Sivasankar 3.5, B. Abdul Rahim 2.5 lost to R. Ananth 3.5, J. Sridhar 3.5 bt P. Vaidhyanathan 2.5, S.M. Syed Moosa 2.5 lost to M. Vijay Anand 3.5, K. Vaishnavi 2.5 lost to K.V. Anil Kumar 3.5, C.J. Arvind 2.5 drew with B. Sashikanth 3, R. Gomathy 2 lost to L.V. Siva Kumar 3, Aswin Jayaram 3 bt B. Gopalakrishnan 2, J.K. Gowtham 3 bt M.J. Jaffar Ali 2, N. Srinath 2 lost to M.M. Justine 3, V.B. Manikandan 2 lost to S. Sanjai Kumar 3, Utham Sharma 2.5 drew with Prakash V. Rao 2.5.

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