Date:21/09/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/09/21/stories/2008092160741700.htm

Sport - Chess

Jha ends Shyam’s winning run

Rakesh Rao

ZAMBAOLIM (Goa): Two-time champion Sriram Jha managed to wipe off P. Shyam Nikhil’s overnight one-point lead but not his friendly smile.

The 32-year-old Jha was not required to draw from his experience once the 16-year-old Shyam got into a muddle and surrendered rather tamely in 29 moves during an eventful eighth round action of the Monginis 46th National ‘B’ chess championship here on Saturday.

With five rounds to go, Jha shared the lead with his Sunday’s rival Adhiban and Shyam at seven points on a day when the top nine seeds, including all four Grandmasters, failed to be among the day’s winners.

Tenth seed Aswin Jayaram was the highest rated player to post a victory that took him to 5.5 points. Shyam, a Class XI student of Chennai’s S.R.M. Nightingale Matriculation School, could not prevent Jha from getting a promising position in Ruy Lopez.

Jha claimed a queenside pawn and tightened his hold by adding another one before Shyam resigned. Even in defeat, Shyam retained his poise and smile as he admitted Jha’s superiority on this day.

Lucky escape

Top seed Parimarjan Negi, too, had no hesitation in acknowledging the fact that he was indeed lucky to escape defeat against triple International Master norm-holder M.R. Lalith Babu.

This interesting Grunfeld game saw both teenagers falter by turns. Towards the end, Lalith appeared on the threshold of victory but overlooked a winning continuation before a deadlock became inevitable.

One big consolation and relief for Lalith was that accumulated rating from several recent tournaments and from eight games here has helped him cross the stipulated rating of 2400 thus paving the way for becoming an IM.

Barring Parimarjan, the other three GMs — Deepan Chakkravarthy, Neelotpal Das and Pravin Thipsay — settled for fairly quick draws.

Infact, Deepan is still looking for his first victory in four games with black pieces.

Second-seeded International Master R.R. Laxman and Akshayraj Kore battled for 52 moves while ninth seed M.S. Thej Kumar took a 11-move draw from former champion N. Sudhakar Babu.

M.R. Venkatesh and Deep Sengupta, seeded five and seven, lost with black pieces to former winner Suvrajit Saha and Ram S. Krishnan.

The results: Eighth round: P. Shyam Nikhil (7) lost to Sriram Jha (7); M.R. Lalith Babu (6.5) drew with Parimarjan Negi (6.5); G. Rohit (6) lost to B. Adhiban (7); R.R. Laxman (6) drew with Akshayraj Kore (6.5); Neelotpal Das (6) drew with G.B. Prakash (6).

Suvrajit Saha (6.5) bt M.R. Venkatesh (5.5); Ram S. Krishnan (6.5) bt Deep Sengupta (5.5); Pravin Thipsay (6) drew with Prathamesh Mokal (6); N. Sudhakar Babu (6) drew with M.S. Thejkumar (6); P. Konguvel (5.5) lost to M. Shyam Sundar (6.5); B.T. Murali Krishnan (6.5) bt R. Arun Karthik (5.5); Swapnil Dhopade (5.5) lost to E.P. Nirmal (6.5); P.D.S. Girinath (5.5) drew with Prasanna Rao (6); Joydeep Dutta (5.5) drew with Deepan Chakkravarthy (5.5); Rishipal Singh (6) bt S.P. Sethuraman (5); R.A. Pradeep Kumar (5) lost to S. Satyapragyan (6); Mehar Chinna Reddy(5.5) drew with Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury (5.5); M.B. Muralidharan (5)lost to Saptarshi Roy (6); P. Karthikeyan (5.5) drew with Ravi Hegde(5.5); Vidit Gujarati (5.5) drew with J. Sridhar (5.5); Venkata Ramana (6) bt Rahul Sangma (5); B.S. Shivananda (6) bt Chinmay Kulkarni (5); J. Ramakrishna (6) bt Kunal (5); Vikas Sharma (5) lost to Rahul Shetty (6).