Date:13/08/2005 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2005/08/13/stories/2005081309972000.htm

Sport - Chess

Ramesh assured of regaining title

Rakesh Rao

NEW DELHI: With R.B. Ramesh assured of regaining the National `B' chess title and nine others, including six new faces, looking poised to qualify to the next National `A' the focus shifted on those vying for the remaining four qualifying spots after the 12th and penultimate round on Friday.

As expected, the top three boards ended in draws and left Ramesh retaining his one-point overnight lead. He now faces veteran ONGC campaigner Lanka Ravi in the final round. Another agreed draw is enough for Ramesh to reclaim the title won in 2003.

Ramesh's 12th-round opponent S. Arun Prasad, B.S. Shivanandan, B.T. Muralikrishna, Diwakar Prasad Singh and P.D.S. Girinath raised their respective tally to nine points through draws while Sriram Jha, Lanka Ravi, Himanshu Sharma, M.S. Thej Kumar and Vikramaditya Kamble reached a similar score by posting hard-fought victories.

From the above pack, only Muralikrishna is expected to battle it out for the much-needed draw to qualify when he comes up against Deepan Chakkravarthy, who faces a win-and-qualify situation. All others are likely to settle for early draws and ensure qualification.

It was heartening to see hard-working players like Kamble, Diwakar, Shivanandan, Thej and Himanshu Sharma, gain their maiden qualification to the National championship. Deep Sengupta, K. Ratnakaran and M.K. Panigrahi are the other three players who face a must-win situation to join the list of first-time qualifiers. Seasoned campaigners like former National champion P. Konguvel, V. Saravanan and Dinesh Sharma, too, are fancying their chances.

Dreams shattered

On the penultimate day, 12-year-old M. . Lalith Babu, Nisha Mohota, and T. Purushothaman had their dreams of maiden qualification shattered. D. Harika, last year's qualifier, also lost and joined Valay Parikh and R.R. Laxman as those who have a slender chance of making the top-14 bracket. For these players to qualify, at least two or three games involving players with 8.5 points should end in draws on Saturday.

The results (12th round):

S. Arun Prasad (9) drew with R.B. Ramesh (10); B.S. Shivanandan (9) drew with B.T. Muralikrishna (9); Diwakar Prasad Singh (9) drew with P.D.S. Girinath (9); M.R. Lalith Babu (8) lost to Sriram Jha (9); Lanka Ravi (9) bt R.R. Laxman (8); D. Harika (8) lost to Himanshu Sharma (9); M.S. Thej Kumar (9) bt Nisha Mohota (8); Dinesh Kumar Sharma (8.5) drew with K. Ratnakaran (8.5); Valay Parikh (8) lost to Vikramaditya Kamble (9); T. Purushothaman (8) lost to Deepan Chakkravarthy (9); Arghyadip Das (8.5) bt R. Preetham Sharma (7.5); K. Visweswaran (7.5) lost to Deep Sengupta (8.5); P. Konguvel (8.5) bt Rishi Pal Singh (7.5); Abhijeet Gupta (8.5) bt Sekhar Sahu (7.5); Saptarshi Roy (7.5) lost to M. K. Panigrahi (8.5); O.T. Anil Kumar (7.5) lost to V. Saravanan (8.5); C.S. Gokhale (7.5) drew with R. Ashwath (7.5); Prathamesh Mokal (8) bt Nassir Wajih (7); Gurpreet Pal Singh (7.5) drew with Roktim Bandyopadhyay (7.5); M. Vinoth Kumar (7) lost to G. Rohit (8); Vishal Sareen (7.5) drew with T. Abhay (7.5); T. S. Ravi (7.5) drew with L. Imocha (7.5); Tanmoy Patnayak (8) bt N. Sanjay (7); Varugeese Koshy (7.5) drew with J. Malleswara Rao (7.5); Debaditya Sinha Biswas (7) lost to G. N. Gopal (8); Somak Palit (8) bt L. Ishwarya Shobana (7); Ajay Pandey (7) lost to Satchidanand Soman (8); Neeraj Mishra (7.5) drew with Rajkumar Chauhan (7.5); V. Hariharan (7.5) drew with N. Sudhakar Babu (7.5); Akshat Khamparia (7.5) drew with Kiran Manisha Mohanty (7.5); G. B. Joshi (8) bt Rahul M. Ved (7).

Leading pairings (13th round): Ramesh-Lanka; Himanshu-Shivanandan; Jha-Arun; Girinath-Thej; Kamble-Diwakar; Deepan-Muralikrishna; Saravanan-Arghyadip; Deep-Dinesh; Panigrahi-Konguvel; Ratnakaran-Abhijeet.