Date:23/12/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/12/23/stories/2008122361351700.htm

Sport - Chess

All games drawn; Ganguly maintains lead

P.K. Ajith Kumar

MANGALORE: Surya Shekhar Ganguly, in search of his sixth straight title, had a rest day on Monday. But he still was in the sole lead at the end of the sixth round of the 46th National ‘A’ chess championship at the Karnataka Bank Auditorium, because all the six games were drawn.

Two players, second seed Parimarjan Negi and S. Satyapragyan, were capable of catching up with him had they won. While Negi had little chances of forcing a win against Praveen Thipsay in a rook-and-pawn ending, Satyapragyan had his opportunities for a full point against M. Shyam Sundar.

Ganguly has four points, with seven rounds remaining, half-a-point ahead of Negi and Satyapragyan.

Satyapragyan, who played Ruy Lopez, had moved into a superior position after a couple of week moves early on by his rival, but he failed to take advantage and settled for a 54-move draw.

Neelotpal Das, playing on the white side of a Slav Defence against Sriram Jha, looked better, but a combination of inaccurate moves from him and correct defending by the latter saw the game ending in a draw .

The All India Chess Federation secretary D.V. Sundar has said the federation has no intention to pressurise top Indian players to play at the Chess Olympiad. Both Viswanthan Anand and Koneru Humpy had skipped the recent Olympiad in Germany.

“Anand had told me well in advance that he would not be in a position to play the Olympiad because he would be preparing for his World championship against Vladimir Kramnik,” Mr. Sundar told reporters here.

“We could understand his position. Humpy said she would have little time to recover after playing some international tournament.”

He said it was unfortunate that the players didn’t give enough importance to representing the country at prestigious tournaments like the Olympiad. “It seems they will need the federation’ support only when they want to apply for State honours like the Padma and Dronacharya awards.”

The results (sixth round): Neelotpal Das 2.5 drew with Sriram Jha 2; K. Ratnakaran 3 drew with J. Deepan Chakravarthy 3; P. Konguvel 2.5 drew with Akshayraj Kore 3; Praveen Thipsay 1.5 drew with Parimarjan Negi 3.5; M.S. Thejkumar 3 drew with B. Adhiban 1; S. Satyapragyan 3.5 drew with M. Shyam Sundar 3; Surya Shekhar Ganguly 4 bye.