Date:01/10/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/10/01/stories/2008100162202300.htm

Sport - Chess

Sangma shocks Short; six share lead

Rakesh Rao

NAGPUR: Making a complete mockery of rating and reputation, Rahul Sangma inflicted a painful defeat on two-time champion and firm favourite Nigel Short to light up the Commonwealth chess championship here on Tuesday.

Short’s first-ever defeat in the championship in India overshadowed the rest of the proceedings on the first of the two double-round days of the competition.

With Short knocked out of the top board after the loss in the third round, second seed Surya Shekhar Ganguly was the only Grandmaster in the lead with Deep Sengupta, S. P. Sethuraman, B. T. Murali Krishnan, Anup Deshmukh and Pakistan’s Mahmood Lodhi at four points.

Not to his liking

Short stands tall among GMs from the Commonwealth fold. Here for a third title, the Briton hates the practice of playing two rounds a day and makes no secret of it.

On Tuesday, a 9 O’clock start to the third round was clearly not to the liking of this reluctant campaigner.

Short looked relaxed almost to the point of appearing casual during the game against Sangma, a diminutive 19-year-old commerce student from New Delhi.

At the start, Short had not deemed it appropriate to shake hands with his young, awestruck rival rated at 2339 against his own 2655.

After nearly three hours and 35 moves, Sangma did not succeed in making Short shake hands but left him shaking his head in disbelief.

“I’ve never beaten a Grandmaster, let alone someone with a rating in excess of 2650,” said a soft-spoken Sangma who shifted from Chhapra, in Bihar, to the National Capital in 2006.

Sangma confessed that he just could believe his eyes when Short gave up.

Playing from the black side of Ruy Lopez, Sangma sacrificed a pawn in the middle game after 14 moves of suggested theory.

The turning point came when Sangma succeeded in getting a rook for a bishop.

Keeping his cool, Sangma gave up a minor bishop to enhance his winning chances.

Short returned the minor piece but resigned soon when he saw no way of stopping Sangma’s advanced central pawn.

The results (Indians unless stated): Fourth round: Surya Shekhar Ganguly (4) bt Vikramaditya Kamble (3); Deep Sengupta (4) bt Lanka Ravi (3); Aswin Jayaram (3.5) drew with Suvrajit Saha (3.5).

S. P. Sethuraman (4) bt Shashikant Kutwal (3); Rahul Sangma (3.5) drew with S. Satyapragyan (3.5); B. T. Murali Krishnan (4) bt T. Purushothaman (3); Aleksandar Wohl (Aus, 3) lost to Anup Deshmukh (4); Mahmood Lodhi (Pak, 4) bt M. Vinay Kumar (3); Varugeese Koshy (3.5) drew with Ziaur Rahman (Ban, 3); P. Karthikeyan (3) drew with Abhijeet Gupta (3); Parimarjan Negi (3.5) bt Taibur Rahman (2.5); Guy West (Aus, 3) drew with R. R. Laxman (3).

Dibyendu Barua (3) drew with J. Ramakrishna (3); M. R. Lalith Babu (2.5) lost to S. Arun Prasad (3.5); M. Shyam Sundar (3) drew with P. Magesh Chandran (3); Akshat Khamparia (3) drew with Deepan Chakkravarthy (3); C. Praveen Kumar (3) drew with M. R. Venkatesh (3); G. Rohit (3) drew with G. B. Joshi (3); S. Kidambi (3) drew with K. Priyadarshan (3); Pankaj Joshi (3) drew with P. D. S. Girinath (3); Arghyadip Das (3.5) drew with Abhishek Kelkar (2.5); Saurabh Kherdekar (2) lost to Nigel Short (3).

Third round: Short lost to Sangma; Minhazuddin Ahmed lost to Ganguly; Ziaur Rahman drew with Lalith Babu; Ramakrishna drew with Negi; Deepan drew with Shyam Sundar; Taibur Rahman drew with Rohit; Nitin lost to Deep; G. B. Joshi drew with Kidambi; D. P. Singh lost to Aswin; Sriram Jha lost to Purushothaman; Soumya Swaminathan lost to S. P. Sethuraman; Girinath drew with Praveen Kumar; Anup Deshmukh bt Konguvel; Satyapragyan bt Eesha Karavade Sohan Phadke lost to Murali Krishnan; Pankaj Joshi drew with Arghyadip Das; Vinay Kumar bt Akshayraj Kore; Swapnil Dhopade lost to Koshy; J. Venkata Ramana lost to Wohl; Saheli Dhar-Barua lost to Lodhi.