Date:26/07/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/07/26/stories/2008072659612100.htm

Sport - Chess

Ramesh beats Kritz to be among leaders

NEW DELHI: Commonwealth champion R.B. Ramesh surprised fellow Grand Master and fifth seed German Leonid Kritz to be among the 12 leaders after four rounds of the Biel Masters chess tournament at Biel, Switzerland, on Thursday.

In the Politiken Cup at Copenhagen, Ashwin Jayaram took a quick 12-move draw against Russian GM Konstantin Landa to reach 5.5 points. Tania Sachdev moved to five points after beating Denmark’s Henrik Molvig in 32 moves.

In the Dutch Open at Dieren, Holland, Sandipan Chanda defeated local Talitha Munnik in the third round to join teammate Sriram Jha with two points.

Surya Sekhar Ganguly, M.R. Venkatesh and Abhijit Kunte drew their sixth round games in the Canadian Open at Montreal to share the third spot with 12 others at four points.

Meanwhile, the Indian contingent returned from its highly successful three-event exposure trip to Spain.

The results (involving Indians):

Biel Masters (fourth round): R. B. Ramesh (3.5) bt Leonid Kritz (Ger, 2.5).

N. Srinath (3) bt Etienne Mensch (Fra, 2).

Politiken Cup (seventh round): Aswin Jayaram (5.5) drew with Konstantin Landa (Rus, 5.5); Tania Sachdev (5) bt Henrik Molvig (Den, 4).

Canadian Open (sixth round): Walter Arencibia (Cub, 4) drew with Surya Shekhar Ganguly (4); Alexander Huzman (Isr, 4) drew with M. R. Venkatesh (4); Abhijit Kunte (4) drew with Matthieu Cornette (Fra, 4); Shiyam Thavandiran (Can, 4) bt S. Arun Prasad (3); K. Ratnakaran (3.5) bt Nisha Mohota (3); Eesha Karavade (3.5) bt Swati Ghate (2.5); Kiran Manisha Mohanty (2.5) lost to Bindi Cheng (Can, 3.5); Sai Meera (2.5) drew with Nicolas Yap (USA, 2.5).

Dutch Open (third round): Erik Doel (Ned, 3) bt Sriram Jha (2); Sandipan (2) bt Talitha Munnik (Ned, 1).