Date:16/02/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/02/16/stories/2007021606052300.htm

Sport - Chess

Indians impress

NEW DELHI: Four-time National champion Surya Shekhar Ganguly, International Master S. Vijayalakshmi and Woman Grandmaster D. Harika recorded stunning first-round victories with black pieces as the Indians made their presence felt in the Aeroflot Open chess tournament in Moscow on Wednesday.

The results (first round, involving Indians): `A1': K. Sasikiran drew with Dmitry Svetushkin (Mda); Ian Nepomniachtchi (Rus) drew with P. Hari Krishna; Andrei Volokitin (Ukr) lost to Surya Shekhar Ganguly; Zahar Efimenko (Ukr) drew with Parimarjan Negi; Dennis Khismatullin (Rus) lost to S. Vijayalakshmi; Tigran Petrosian (Arm) lost to D. Harika.

`A2': Abhijit Kunte bt Nilolai Pokazanjev (Rus); Artus Gabrielian (Rus) bt Lanka Ravi; Deep Sengupta drew with Valentin Iotov (Bul); Deepan Chakkravarthy bt Daan Brandenburg (Ned); Vladimir Dobrov (Rus) bt S. Arun Prasad; Alexander Krapivin (Rus) bt Ashwin Jayaram; G. Rohit drew with Alexandr Rakhmanov (Rus); Tania Sachdev drew with Zhao Xue (Chn); Lilit Mkrtchian (Arm) drew with S. Meenakshi.

`B': Suvrajit Saha lost to Theo van de Berkmortel (Ned); B. Adhiban drew with Mikhail Nedochetov (Rus); Dinesh Sharma drew with Olga Dolgova (Rus); R. Arun Karthik drew with Michael Langer (USA); Dmitry Petukhov (Rus) bt Padmini Rout; Aarthie Ramaswamy drew with Andre Kuznesov (Rus); Abhishek Das drew with Daniel Koffler (Aut); Firuza Velikhanli (Aze) lost to Sahaj Grover.

`C': N. Vera Tikhomirova (Rus) lost to P. Priya; Sergey Nikologorskiy (Rus) lost to P. Sivasankari; Mahima Rajmohan lost to Oleg Pankratov (Rus).