Date:14/05/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/05/14/stories/2008051453311800.htm

Sport - Chess

Murali shocks Gagunashvili

MUMBAI: B. T. Murali Krishnan used his experience to surprise third seeded Georgian Grandmaster Merab Gagunashvili in the fourth round of the first Mayor’s Cup International Open chess tournament at the Goregaon Sports Complex here on Tuesday.

This seasoned campaigner from Railways outfoxed Gagunashvili in 41moves of Pirc Defence and joined 13 others in the lead at four points.

The leaders included second seed K. Humpy, R. R. Laxman, Deep Sengupta and three Grandmasters from Bangladesh.

Commonwealth champion R. B. Ramesh and fellow GM Tejas Bakre fell back after being held. M. R. Lalith Babu drew with Ramesh and Ram S. Krishan proved equal to Bakre.

The results (Indians unless stated):

Fourth round: K. Humpy (4) bt Vikramaditya Kamble (3); P. Konguvel (3) lost to Bartlomiej Macieja (Pol, 3); B. T. Murali Krishnan (4) bt Merab Gagunashvili (Geo, 3); N. Sudhakar Babu (3) lost to Abdullah Al-Rakib (Ban, 4); Ziaur Rahman (Ban, 4) bt Shashikant Kutwal (3); Swati Ghate (3) lost to R. R. Laxman (4); D. P. Singh (3) lost to Reefat Bin Sattar (Ban, 4); Shukhrat Safin (Uzb, 4) bt Vidit Gujarati; M. R. Lalith Babu (3.5) drew with R. B. Ramesh (3.5); Ram S. Krishnan (3.5) drew with Tejas Bakre (3.5); Sriram Jha (3.5) drew with C. S. Gokhale (3.5); Aditya Udeshi (3) lost to M. R. Venkatesh (4); Deep Sengupta (4) bt Soumya Swaminathan (3); B. Adhiban (4) bt Preetham Sharma (3); N. Neelakanthan (3) lost to M. S. Thejkumar (4); Himanshu Sharma (4) bt T. Purushothaman (3); Pranav Shetty (3) lost to S. Satyapragyan (4).