Sport - Chess   

Arvind holds Humpy

By Rakesh Rao

C.J. Arvind makes notes during his drawn encounter with the top seed GM Koneru Humpy in the third round of the 41st National `B' chess championship, at Nagpur on Friday. — Photo: R.V. Moorthy

NAGPUR AUG. 1. Koneru Humpy got the first taste of the bitter competition that makes the National `B' chess championship so different from all other open tournaments in the country.

As early as on day two of this 13-round competition, Humpy was forced to drop half-a-point against C.J. Arvind in the third round.

It is not often that a much lesser rated player sacrifices a knight for a pawn in the middle-game against a Grandmaster, gains advantage but blunders under time-pressure and still comes out undefeated. That, in short, was Arvind's journey after adopting the Torre Attack on way to an admirable result against a rival rated 206 points more.

The 22-year-old Arvind, who is awaiting the final year result of the Financial Management course, had to play correctly towards the end when Humpy tried to force the issue. With all the pawns off the board, Humpy had a rook for Arvind's knight. A draw looked a fair result for long before it was formalised by Arvind's precision play.

The round saw only five of the top-10 boards end in decisive results. Third seed R.B. Ramesh brushed aside Manish Kumar on the second board to head a pack of 15 leaders who include his elder brother Prakash, M.R. Venkatesh, V. Saravanan, T.S. Ravi, Divakar Prasad, Poobesh Anand, P. Konguvel and local teenager Pratik Shriwas, who upstaged IM Sekhar Sahu.

In a Sicilian Classical game, Ramesh gained a rook for knight on the 18th move. Later, Ramesh `pinned' Manish's bishop and claimed it before emerging victorious in 37 moves.

The biggest casualty of the day was Neeraj Kumar Mishra who fell to Bihar's Divakar Prasad. Among the IMs held today were an unwell S. Satyapragyan, Rahul Shetty, Dinesh Sharma, Roktim Bandyopadhyay and Varugeese Koshy. Defending champion Suvrajit Saha dropped half-a-point to youngster Sayantan Dutta.

On the lower boards, D.V. Prasad scored over Ebenezer Joseph while N. Sudhakar Babu progressed at the expense of Chandra Hawsa. IMs Anup Deshmukh, C.S. Gokhale, Deepan Chakkravarthy and Prathamesh Mokal were among those who posted their second victories. Two rounds are scheduled for Saturday.

* The results: third round: C.J. Arvind (2.5) drew with Koneru Humpy (2.5); Manish Kumar (2) lost to R.B. Ramesh (3); G.B. Prakash (3) bt Prasenjit Dutta (2); Somak Palit (2.5) drew with S. Satyapragyan (2.5); Rishipal Singh (2.5) drew with Rahul Shetty (2.5); P.K. Singh (2.5) drew with Dinesh Kumar Sharma (2.5); M.R. Venkatesh (3) bt Amit Kumar Medda (2); Arjun Tiwari (3) bt Ravi Hegde (2); Suvrajit Saha (2.5) drew with Sayantan Dutta (2.5); R.K. Appolosana (2) lost to V. Saravanan (3); Roktim Bandhopadhyay (2.5) drew with Argyadip Das (2.5); T.S. Ravi (3) bt L. Imocha (2); Naseer Wajih (2.5) drew with Shashikant Kutwal (2.5); V.S. Negi (2.5) drew with K. Ratnakaran (2.5); Neeraj Mishra (2) lost to Divakar Prasad Singh (3); K. Nikhilesh Kumar (2.5) drew with K. Visweswaran (2.5); Poobesh Anand (3) bt Akash Thakur (2); Rohan Shandilya (2) lost to P. Konguvel (3); Gurpreet Singh Maras (2.5) drew with Vikramaditya Kamble (2.5); J. Ramakrishna (2) lost to Swapan Mitra (3); S. Arun Prasad (2) lost to Vinod Bhagwat (3); Pawan Dodeja (2.5) drew with Yogesh Gore (2.5); Jayant Gokhale (2.5) drew with E.P. Nirmal (2.5); Sekhar Sahu (2) lost to Pratik Shriwas (3); R. Sabrimuthu (2) lost to N. Srinivas Rao (3); G.B. Joshi (3) bt J. Malleswara Rao (2); P.D.S. Girinath (2) lost to Anand Awadhia (3); Sriram Jha (2.5) bt P. Jayakumar (2); D.V. Prasad (2.5) bt Ebenezer Joseph (1.5); N. Sudhakar Babu (2.5) bt Koneru Chandra Hawsa (1.5); Ravikumar (1.5) lost to Deepan Chakkravarthy (2.5); K.V. Shantaram (1.5) lost to Prathamesh Mokal (2.5); Debashish Mukherjee (1.5) lost to C.S. Gokhale (2.5); A. Pawanasam (1.5) lost to Manoj Mishra (2.5); Y. Prathiba (2) drew with R. Preetham Sharma (2); Varugeese Koshy (2) drew with R. Hariharan (2); Saptarshi Roy (1.5) lost to Keshavananda Krishna (2.5); Ramu Kandi (2.5) bt Pankaj Joshi (1.5); Karun Duggal (1.5) lost to Shankar Roy (2.5); R. Balasubramanium (2.5) bt Devinder Singh Puri (1.5); Biswajit Chatterjee (2.5) bt Saurabh Kherdekar (1.5); V. Raghavendra (2.5) bt R.K. Mishra (1.5); M. Vinay Kumar (2) drew with Arindam Mukherjee (2); Santosh Kumar Sinha (2) drew with Byomokesh Nayak (2); C. Natarajan (2.5) bt Maesh Chander Tanwar (1.5); Hemant Kumar Mandhare (2.5) bt K. Gunasekharan (1.5); B.S. Shivanandan (2) bt Samarjit Singh (1.5); Vishal Sareen (2) bt N. Vinuthna (1); Anup Deshmukh (2) bt Aswin Jayaram (1); L. Iswarya Shobana (1) lost to Himanshu Sharma (2).

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sport

News: Front Page | National | Southern States | Other States | International | Opinion | Business | Sport | Entertainment | Miscellaneous |
Advts: Classifieds | Employment | Obituary |

Stories in this Section

Cricket

• Graeme Smith's bat getting broader and broader
• Nehra hopes to be fit for Kiwi series
  
  Tennis
  
• Sunitha Rao at the crossroads
  
  Hockey
  
• Champions Trophy celebrates silver jubilee
• 'Wealth of talent at junior level'
  
  Football
  
• Bagan in Fed Cup semis
  
  Badminton
  
• Bao Chunlai in last four
  
  Billiards & Snooker
  
• Pankaj top-seeded
  
  Chess
  
• Kramnik begins in style
• Arvind holds Humpy
  
  Golf
  
• Amateur meet tomorrow
• Chiranjeev stays in contention
  
  Sports : General
  
• Testing at dope lab to resume soon
  
  

Copyright © 2003, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu