Date:12/02/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/02/12/stories/2008021257111900.htm

Sport - Chess

Ganguly outplays Sethuraman

Arvind Aaron

Chennai: Grandmaster Surya Shekhar Ganguly of Indian Oil, Kolkata outplayed National sub-junior champion Sethuraman of Chennai with a theoretical novelty to enhance his lead at the end of the ninth round in the Velammal National ‘A’ chess championship at the M.A.C. Stadium here on Monday.

Ganguly who is looking for his fifth straight title here is ahead by 1.5 points with 7.5 points after nine games. Four rounds remain to be played.

In the second place on six points are M.R. Venkatesh and G.N. Gopal of Bharat Petroleum and M.S. Thejkumar.

The highlight of this round was M.S. Thejkumar of Mysore completing his second Grandmaster and International Master norms. “I feel very good and would soon be calling my family,” said the 27-year old. He had made the first GM and IM norms late last year at Delhi in the Commonwealth championship.

Needing a draw to get the GM norm, Thejkumar proposed a draw and Barua promptly rejected it. The youngster fought hard with white to draw the opposite colour bishop ending that emerged from a Semi-Slav opening. Undefeated Thejkumar has had the best performance here which includes three wins against International Masters and six draws against Grandmasters.

In a king’s Indian attack opening, Gopal offered a draw along with his 16th turn after he had already equalised and looking little better and Kunte agreed to it without a second thought. “Two moves before he had declined a draw and I had 20 minutes and he had 35 minutes,” said Gopal justifying the result.

Arun Prasad bottled up Deepan Chakkravarthy’s queen with white to seize an advantage in the Modern Benoni game to reach 5.5 points.

N. Sanjay of Karnataka needed a draw for an International Master norm but he lost to Tamil Nadu’s Ashwin Jayaram. However, Vidit Gujrathi of Nasik downed Sriram Jha to make his maiden IM norm with 5/9. Vidit’s parents have hired the services of GM Alon Greenfeld of Israel to train him here.

Grandmaster Ramesh protested against ninth round pairing as he was paired to meet Saptarshi Roy for the second time in the same event by the FIDE approved software programme. When they met earlier, Ramesh received a walkover point as Saptarshi Roy was sick. The appeals committee consisting D. Barua, P.M. Thipsay, N.K. Mishra, N. Sanjay and K. Ratnakaran turned down his appeal.

Having to play Saptarshi Roy again, Ramesh made a quick draw and left the hall.

Important results (round nine): S.P. Sethuraman 5.5 lost to S.S. Ganguly 7.5, A. Kunte 5.5 drew with G.N. Gopal 6, M.S. Thejkumar 6 drew with D. Barua 5.5, M.R. Venkatesh 6 bt K. Ratnakaran 5, Roktim Bandyopadhyay 5 drew with P. Negi 5, Arun Prasad 5.5 bt Deepan Chakkravarthy 4.5, Neelotpal Das 5.5 bt B. Adhiban 4.5, Saptarshi Roy 5 drew with R.B. Ramesh 5, Tejas Bakre 5 drew with S.R. Chowdhury 5, P. Konguvel 4.5 drew with Sudhakar Babu 5, Shashikant Kutwal 4.5 drew with P.M. Thipsay 4.5, Nisha Mohota 4.5 drew with S. Kidambi 4.5.