Date:09/07/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/07/09/stories/2008070956872200.htm

Sport - Chess

Abhijeet, Neelotpal among leaders

NEW DELHI: Grandmasters Abhijeet Gupta and Neelotpal Das were among the 21 leaders at 4.5 points after five rounds of the 28th Benasque International Open chess tournament at Benasque, Spain, on Monday.

Abhijeet, seeded 13 in a field of 493 players, defeated Italy’s Carlos Garcia Palermo, while Neelotpal held sixth-seeded Julio Granda Zuniga of Peru.

Other encouraging results came from Tamil Nadu’s duo of Shyam Sundar and S.P. Sethuraman, Pune’s Soumya Swaminathan, Mumbai youngster Prasanna Rao and lowly rated Devangi Patankar.

Shyam played way over his rating to prove equal to 16th-seeded Mexican GM Manuel Leon Hoyos just like Sethuraman did against another Mexican, 26th-seeded Jose Gonzalez Garcia, Soumya pulled off a creditable draw against Spanish GM Juan Mario Gomez Esteban, Prasanna stunned International Master Deep Sengupta and Devangi drew with former National women’s champion and Woman Grandmaster S. Meenakshi.

The results (fifth round, involving Indians): Neelotpal Das (4.5) drew with Julio Granda Zuniga (Per, 4.5); Kevin Spraggett (Can, 4.5) bt R.B. Ramesh (3.5); Karen Movsziszian (Arm, 4.5) bt D. Harika (3.5); Abhijeet Gupta (4.5) bt Carlos Garcia Palermo (Ita, 3.5); Jose Gonzalez Garcia (Mex, 4) drew with S.P. Sethuraman (4); Manuel Leon Hoyos (Mex, 3.5) drew with Shyam Sundar (3.5); Juan Mario Gomez Esteban (Esp, 3.5) drew with Soumya Swaminathan (3.5).

S. Vinay Bhat (USA, 4) bt T. Abhay (3); Robin Swinkels (Ned, 3) lost to Kruttika Nadig (4); Prasanna Rao (4) bt Deep Sengupta (3); B. Adhiban (4) bt Jon Angulo Martinez (Esp, 3).

Hannes Langrock (Ger, 4) bt R. Preethi (3); Swapnil Dhopade (4) bt Jana Bellin (Eng, 3); P. Uthra (3) lost to Piotr Dukaczewski (Pol, 4); Javier Sanchez Carrasco (Esp, 3) lost to Vishnu Prasanna (4); Devangi Patankar (3.5) drew with S. Meenakshi (3.5); A. Niji (3) lost to M.R. Lalith Babu (4); Antonio Viani D’cunha (3.5) bt David Recuero Guerra (Esp, 2.5); Ivan Hernandez (Per, 3.5) bt Shalmali Gagare (2.5); Mary Ann Gomes (3) drew with Aaron Bendayan Carlos (Esp, 3); S. Nitin (3.5) bt Christophe Ballarin (Fra, 2.5); K. Priyadarshan (3.5) bt German Perez Prieto (Esp, 2.5); Jose Luis Ortiz Amenos (Esp, 3) drew with Bhakti Kulkarni (3); Pon N. Krithika (3.5) bt Victor Lillo Castay (Esp, 2.5); G.V. Sai Krishna (3) bt Alvaro Sanmartin Agustin (Esp, 2); C.P. Aatirah (2) lost to Emilio Martin Rodriguez (Esp, 3); Carlos Laplaza Ara (Esp, 2) drew with S.V. Satyapriya (2).