Date:29/07/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/07/29/stories/2008072961002000.htm

Sport - Chess

Ashwath is king

Arvind Aaron

CHENNAI: Former National sub-junior champion Ashwath Raja of Chennai took a quick draw against FIDE Master K.V. Shantharam of Indian Bank with the black pieces to win the third S.K. Narasimhan memorial FIDE-rating chess tournament at the Nehru Stadium here on Monday.

Ashwath had a higher tie-break score after three players tied for the top spot with nine points from 11 rounds. With a lower progressive score, P. Maheswaran (SRM) was second and defending champion Ram S. Krishnan (BSNL) was third.

Special

“Winning my third rating tournament is special,” said the 17-year-old Ashwath. Last year, he had a session with world champion Viswanathan Anand and immediately went on to win two FIDE-rating events at Karur and Coimbatore.

Maheswaran, one of the two overnight leaders, offered a draw which the 12-year-old Kaushik rejected on the top table. “Realising that Kaushik could win, I took an 18-move draw with black,” said Ashwath, the other leader.

Ram won his final round game but it gave him only the third spot. S. Kaushik, 12, was an impressive Elo gainer from this contest while finishing a clear fourth.

Important results (11th & final round): S. Kaushik drew with P. Maheswaran, K.V. Shantharam drew with R. Ashwath, Ram S. Krishnan bt Ajay Srikanth, G. Akash drew with Venkat Sundaram, Abhilash Reddy bt J. Saranya, S. Bharath bt N. Rajkumar, Austin Samson bt M. Dhamodharan.

Final placings (tie-break order): 1-3 R. Ashwath, P. Maheswaran, Ram S. Krishnan 9/11 each, 4. S. Kaushik 8.5, 5-8 K.V. Shantharam, Abhilash Reddy, S. Bharath, Austin Samson 8 each, 9-12 Venkat Sundaram (SRM), G. Akash, V. Subramanian, K. Gopalakrishnan (IB) 7.5 each.