Sport - Chess

Ram S. Krishnan is champion

CHENNAI: Top seed Ram S. Krishnan, 24, of BSNL, Chennai played a safe five move draw in the final round against the experienced IM G.B. Prakash of Indian Bank to win the S.K. Narasihman Memorial FIDE-rated Open chess Tournament here on Monday.

Ram pipped V.A.V. Rajesh, the talented boy from Velammal School for the title on higher progressive tie-break score after both players had scored the same nine points from eleven rounds.

Ram received the cash prize of Rs.10,000 and winner trophy from S. Ganesan, president, Tamil Nadu Table Tennis Association.

Rajesh played the exchange variation of the Slav defence with white to defeat Nagaarjuna with white. M.V. Lakshmi Narayanan of Kodaikanal, the only player to defeat the title Ram S. Krishnan here, played a fighting draw against Phoobalan with the black pieces for the third place.

The 156-player event was organised by the Tamil Nadu State Chess Association in memory of S.K. Narasihman, a former vice-president of FIDE and a chess columnist of The Hindu.

Final placings: 1-2. Ram S. Krishnan, V.A.V. Rajesh 9/11 each; 3-4. M.V. Lakshmi Narayanan, G.B. Prakash 8.5; 5-8. C. Praveen Kumar, M.L. Abhilash Reddy, P. Phoobalan, J. Malleswara Rao 8; 9-21. R.A. Pradeep Kumar, P. Jayakumar, A. Nag aarjuna, J. Arun, M. Vijay Anand, R.K. Ranjith, Ramnath Bhuvanesh, G. Santhosh Kumar, H. Venkatesh, K.V. Shantharam, N. Ramaraju, Kanuri Tejaswi, N. Surendran 7.5.