Sport - Chess

Kore holds Ganguly

MANGALORE: Akshayraj Kore used to be counted among the more promising players before he faded away from the scene six years ago to concentrate on his studies. The final year engineering student from Pune had made a fine comeback at the recent National ‘B’ championship in Goa, where he finished sixth.

On Friday, he held reigning champion Surya Shekhar Ganguly to a draw in the third round of the 46th National ‘A’ chess championship here, braving time pressure, both on the board and off it.

Though Ganguly leads the table with 2.5 points, but he has played a game more than J. Deepan Chakravarthy, who defeated Sriram Jha and M.S. Thejkumar.

Deepan’s victory was one of the only two decisive results of the day, Satyapragyan’s fine win against Praveen Thipsay was the other.

The games featuring Parimarjan Negi and Neelotpal Das, the second and third seeds, M. Shyam Sundar and P. Konguvel and B. Adhiban and K. Ratnakaran were all drawn.

Ganguly, playing on the black side of a Yugoslavian Attack in Sicilian Dragon, seemed well prepared yet again in the opening though he was playing it for the first time ever.

Kore, who arrived at the venue about 20 minutes late, was taking a lot more time to make his moves and fell into time trouble before long.

A few miscalculations by Ganguly, after the theoretical exchange sacrifice, saw Kore get a better position. But after 25 moves, Kore accepted the offer of peace from his rival rated over 200 points above him.

Ganguly admitted there was an element of risk with his choice of the opening.

“You won’t gain without taking risks,” he said. “But my problem wasn’t the opening. The decision to keep more pieces on the board to take advantage of his time trouble was what let me down.”

Deepan defeated Jha in 36 moves of Ruy Lopez Breyer to post his second win in as many games, while Satyapragyan beat Thipsay in 42 moves of Ruy Lopez Chigorin.

The Shyam Sundar vs. Konguvel and Negi vs. Neelotpal games both featured opposite colour bishops, while Ratnakaran claimed photographic position (repetition of the same position thrice) after his offer of draw was turned down by Adhiban.

The results (third round): S. Satyapragyan 2 bt Praveen Thipsay 0; M. Shyam Sundar 1.5 drew with P. Konguvel 1; B. Adhiban 0.5 drew with K. Ratnakaran 1.5; Parimarjan Negi 1 drew with Neelotpal Das 1.5; Akshayraj Kore 1 drew with Surya Shekhar Ganguly 2.5; J. Deepan Chakravarthy 2 bt Sriram Jha 1; M.S. Thejkumar 2 bye.

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