Date:22/12/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/12/22/stories/2006122208172200.htm

Sport

Thipsay and Ganguly in lead

Rakesh Rao

VALSAD: Veteran Pravin Thipsay lived dangerously and came out stronger in the battle of oldies against Lanka Ravi to join defending champion Surya Shekhar Ganguly in the lead after five rounds of the Atul National `A' chess championship here on Thursday.

On a day when 12 out of 22 boards produced draws, third seed Diwakar Prasad Singh wriggled out of a positional mess and capitalised on young Swapnil Dhopade's inexperience to win while G.B. Prakash's second straight loss resulted in Woman Grandmaster Eesha Karavade's first victory.

Overall, it was a rather uneventful day with only two Grandmasters posting victories and managing to stay in the lead.

Expected win

Ganguly, looking for his fourth straight National title, expectedly overpowered National junior champion Abhijeet Gupta in 38 moves to reach four points. Thipsay, who became the country's third GM in 1997, continued his domination of the National `B' champion Lanka. Thipsay, who looked in trouble, punished Lanka for a late oversight and won in 60 moves.

The results (fifth round): Surya Shekhar Ganguly (4) bt Abhijeet Gupta (3); Dibyendu Barua (3.5) drew with Abhijit Kunte (3.5); G.N. Gopal (3.5) drew with Deepan Chakkravarthy (3.5); Pravin Thipsay (4) bt Lanka Ravi (3); S. Kidambi (3) drew with S. Arun Prasad (3.5); Himanshu Sharma (3) drew with Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury (3); P. Konguvel (3) drew with Deep Sengupta (3); Swapnil Dhopade (2.5) lost to Diwakar Prasad Singh (3.5); Neelotpal Das (2.5) drew with Suvrajit Saha (2.5); P.D.S. Girinath (2) lost to M.R. Venkatesh (3); Roktim Bandyopadhyay (2) lost to K. Ratnakaran (3); Poobesh Anand (2.5) drew with D. Harika (2.5); R.R. Laxman (2) lost to Valay Parikh (3); Somak Palit (2.5) drew with G. Rohit (2.5); N. Sudhakar Babu (2.5) drew with Swati Ghate (2.5); T.S. Ravi (2) drew with Tejas Bakre (2); Eesha Karavade (2.5) bt G.B. Prakash (1.5); V. Saravanan (2) drew with Sudhir Sinha (2); Vikramaditya Kamble (2.5) bt Abhishek Das (1.5); Prathamesh Mokal (2.5) bt Syed Anwar Shazuli (1.5); M.S. Thej Kumar (1) lost to R.B. Ramesh (2); B.T. Murali Krishnan (1.5) drew with Ashwin Jayaram (1.5); Varugeese Koshy (2) bye.