The Hindu : Humpy, Jha catch up with Ramesh

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Aug 07, 2003

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Sport - Chess

Humpy, Jha catch up with Ramesh

By Rakesh Rao

— Photo: R.V. Moorthy

GM Koneru Humpy (left) notes down a move during her game against IM Rahul Shetty in the 11th round of the 41st National `B' chess championship at Nagpur on Wednesday.

NAGPUR AUG. 6. With R. B. Ramesh slowing down following a third successive friendly draw, Koneru Humpy and Sriram Jha caught up with the overnight leader after recording resounding victories to reach nine points after 11 rounds of the National `B' chess championship here on Wednesday.

On the last of the double-round days, Ramesh drew with Jha and M. R. Venkatesh to almost ensure a place in the 12 qualifying slots for the next National `A' championship. Humpy dumped International Masters Neeraj Mishra and Rahul Shetty with consummate ease while Jha accounted for V. Saravanan.

Since 9.5 points is being seen as the minimum score for qualification, Jha and Ramesh need only a draw from the remaining two rounds to make the grade. It may be recalled that since Humpy is directly seeded into the National `A' by virtue of being a Grandmaster, the first 12 finishers, excluding Humpy, will go through to the premier National `A' championship.

Though the front-runners are visible in this qualifying race, there are a good number of hopefuls following the leaders.

Defending champion Suvrajit Saha, following victories over L. Imocha and C. S. Gokhale, jumped to 8.5 points, same as M. R. Venkatesh, who had advanced at the expense of Pankaj Joshi in the 10th round.

Then there is a crowd of 13 players with eight points each. At least half of these players have a realistic chance of making the top-12 bracket on Friday afternoon. From the 16 players on 7.5 points, those who record victories in the remaining two rounds can also hope to make it. But, like last year, some of those with an aggregate of 9.5 may have to miss qualification due to their poor progressive score.

Prasad misses out

However, one man will not be required to wait any more to know his fate. GM-norm holder D. V. Prasad is sure to miss his second successive National `A'. Prasad, the most consistent performer in last two decades in the National championship, crashed to an unexpected defeat at the hands of Vikramjit Singh.

As a result, Prasad at best can reach nine points which does not seem sufficient.

Usually, with just a couple of rounds to go, short draws on the top boards are only to be expected in this championship. Though Ramesh and his last three rivals agreed to go along the accepted line, Humpy made it delightfully different.

Humpy, who has maintained that she is taking part in this championship "only for practice,'' showed unmatched keenness to play her games to a decisive end.

Since qualification is not a worry for Humpy, she is playing without any pressure. What more, she is proving a point or two to the seasoned IMs who had doubted her real playing strength and questioned her GM-norms `collected' in Hungary. But returning to an open tournament on the domestic circuit after a long time, Humpy is on fire.

The results: 11th round: M. R. Venkatesh (8.5) drew with R. B. Ramesh (9); Koneru Humpy (9) bt Rahul Shetty (8); Sriram Jha (9) bt V. Saravanan (8); Prathamesh Mokal (8) drew with S. Satyapragyan (8); B. S. Shivanandan (8) drew with Vishal Sareen (8); Suvrajit Saha (8.5) bt C. S. Gokhale (7.5); Roktim Bandopadhyay (8) drew with Himanshu Sharma (8); Deepan Chakkravarthy (7.5) drew with Arghyadip Das (8); G. B. Prakash (7.5) drew with P. Konguvel (7.5); D. V. Prasad (7) lost to Vikramjit Singh (8); N. Sudhakar Babu (7.5) drew with Vikramaditya Kamble (7.5); Nassir Wajih (7) lost to M. Srinivasa Rao (8); S. Arun Prasad (8) bt Neeraj Mishra (7); Saptarshi Roy (8) bt Shashikant Kutwal (7); Sekhar Sahu (7) lost to Visweswaran (8); G. B. Joshi (7.5) drew with Pankaj Joshi (7.5); Somak Palit (7.5) bt Ravi Hegde (6.5); T. S. Ravi (7.5) bt K. Gunasekaran (6.5); Varugeese Koshy (7) drew with Anupama Gokhale (7); Rishi Pal Singh (6.5) lost to Atanu Lahiri (7.5); P. Mithrakanth (7.5) bt L. Imocha (6.5); J. Ramakrishna (7) drew with C. Praveen Kumar (7); K. V. Shantaram (6.5) lost to Yogesh Gore (7.5); Jayant Gokhale (7) drew with D. Lakshmanan Rao (7); P. D. S. Girinath (7.5) bt Vikas Sharma (6.5); V. Hariharan (7.5) bt Arindam Mukherjee (6.5); C. J. Arvind (7) drew with K. Nikhilesh Kumar (7); Manish Kumar (7) drew with Prasanna Iyer (7); Vinod Bhagwat (6.5) drew with Dinesh Sharma (6.5); K. Rathnakaran (7) bt D. S. Negi (6); Satchidanand Soman (7) bt Debashish Chakraborty (6); Poobesh Anand (7) bt Anand Awadhia (6).

10th round: Ramesh drew with Jha; Satyapragyan drew with Shetty; Mishra lost to Humpy; Pankaj Joshi lost to Venkatesh; Babu drew with Roy; Lahiri lost to Shivanandan; Vikramjit drew with Deepan; Imocha lost to Saha; Saravanan bt Ramakrishna; Roktim bt Gore; Mokal bt Girinath; Sareen bt Manish Kumar; C. S. Gokhale bt Shantaram; Himanshu Sharma bt Koshy; Arghyadip Das bt Rishi Pal Singh; G. B. Prakash bt Hariharan; Sangma lost to Prasad; Sayantan Dutta lost to Wajih; Vishweswaran bt Ravikumar; Kutwal bt Poobesh; Konguvel bt P. K. Singh; Kamble bt Amithpal Singh; Appolosana lost to Arun Prasad; Debashish Chakraborty lost to Sahu; M. Srinivasa Rao bt Jaydev Saha; Srikar lost to G. B. Joshi; Dinesh Sharma drew with Prasanna Iyer; Hegde bt G. V. Srinivasa Rao; Katdare lost to T. S. Ravi; Mohanan drew with Rathnakaran; Nikhilesh bt Deshmukh; Biswajit Chatterjee drew with Satchidanand Soman.

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