Date:22/01/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/01/22/stories/2007012205682000.htm

Sport - Chess

Adhiban stuns Deepan

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: Former Asian junior champion S. Arun Prasad and National junior champion Abhijeet Gupta made their Grandmaster norms before the in-form G. Rohit kept Alexey Dreev at bay in the ninth round of the Parsvnath International Open chess tournament at the Indira Gandhi Stadium here on Sunday.

With one more round to go, Rohit, Dreev, Adly Ahmed and B. Adhiban share the lead with 7.5 points each. Thirteen players have seven points apiece.

Before Adhiban stunned his Tamil Nadu teammate GM Deepan Chakkravarthy to not only join the leaders, but also keep alive hopes of an IM norm, Rohit produced another solid performance and gleefully accepted Dreev's draw-offer.

Missed chances

On the second board, Egypt's 19-year-old GM Ahmed Adly missed winning chances with white against Bangladesh's Ziaur Rahman and reluctantly drew.

Within minutes of the start of the 10th round, Salem-boy Arun Prasad took an expected draw from M.R. Venkatesh for his third GM norm. Prasad had made his first norm by winning the Asian junior title at Bikaner in 2005 and the second one came in the ONGC Cup in Hyderabad last year.

"I hope FIDE (the World body) confirms my second norm since Deepan's norm in the same tournament was considered for his GM title," said Arun about his yet-to-be-confirmed norm. Should everything be in order, Arun will have to raise his rating from 2399 to 2500 to become a GM.

The results: Ninth round (Indians unless specified): G. Rohit (7.5) drew with Alexey Dreev (Rus, 7); Ahmed Adly (Egy, 7.5) drew with Ziaur Rehman (Ban, 7); B. Adhiban (7.5) bt Deepan Chakkravarthy (6.5); Abhijeet Gupta (7) drew with Neelotpal Das (7); S. Arun Prasad (7) drew with M.R. Venkatesh (7); Surya Shekhar Ganguly (7) bt S. Poobesh Anand (6); Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury (6.5) drew with Yuri Drozdovskij (Ukr, 6.5); Walaa Sarwat (Egy, 6) lost to Abdulla Al Rakib (Ban, 7); Enamul Hossain (Ban, 7) bt Sriram Jha (6); Pravin Thipsay (6) lost to K. Ratnakaran (7); P.D.S. Girinath (6.5) drew with Dibyendu Barua (6.5); Aditya Udeshi (6.5) drew with S. Kidambi (6.5); Swapnil Dhopade (6) lost to Shukhrat Safin (7); Niaz Murshed (Ban, 7) bt Roktim Bandyopadhyay (6); Himanshu Sharma (6) lost to Vikramaditya Kamble (7); Ravi Hegde (7) bt Mohammad Ezat (Egy, 5.5); Abhijit Kunte (6.5) bt M.R. Lalith Babu (5.5); Arnold Essing (Ger, 5.5) lost to Saidali Iuldachev (Uzb, 6.5); Javed Mohammad (Ban, 6.5) bt S. Vijayalakshmi (5.5); G.N. Gopal (6.5) bt Gurpreet Pal Singh (5.5); G.B. Prakash (6) drew with Sohel Chowdhury (Ban, 6); M. Srinivasa Rao (5.5) lost to Saptarshi Roy (6.5); S. Satyapragyan (6.) bt T. Purushothaman (5.5); Arghyadip Das (6.5) bt Ram Prakash (5.5); O.T. Anil Kumar (5.5) lost to Mahmood Lodhi (Pak, 6.5); Padmini Rout (5.5) lost to Prathamesh Mokal (6.5); Nasir Ahmed (Ban, 5.5) lost to Arun Karthik (6.5); Akash Thakur (5.5) lost to Chandrashekhar Gokhale (6.5); R. Balasubramanium (6.5) bt Jitendra Choudhary (5.5); Vidit Gujarathi (6) drew with Preetham Sharma (6).