The Hindu : Ganguly stuns top seed

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Dec 17, 2002

Sport

Sport - Chess

Ganguly stuns top seed

By Rakesh Rao

India's International Master Surya Sekhar Ganguly, who shocked top seed Bu Xiangzhi of China in the ninth round of the Junior World chess championship at Panaji on Monday. Joint leader Luke McShane is at left. — Photo: R.V. Moorthy

PANAJI DEC. 16. What a day it turn out to be for the host !

Surya Sekhar Ganguly became part of the eight-player leading bunch by removing top seeded Chinese Bu Xiangzhi from the way after Chennai-based National under-18 champions Poobesh Anand and P. Priya attained their maiden International Master norms while Koneru Humpy closed the gap with leader Zhao Xue in an eventful ninth round of the World junior chess championship here on Monday.

Even as the boys' title-race was really hotting up, there was no change in the girls standings. Zhao played out a friendly draw with her Chinese teammate Wang Yu to lead with 7.5 points. With Humpy winning `on-time' against Priya, Zhao's lead stood sliced to just half-a-point.

But the talking point of the evening remained Ganguly's stunning return to form. Playing white, Ganguly needed no reminding that he had to gain the maximum today if had to stay in hunt for the coveted title. Having rested well on Saturday and scored an easy win on Sunday, Ganguly was obviously keen to strike it rich with white pieces.

In an interesting battle, following an off-beat line in the `dragon' variation of Sicilian Defence, Bu chose to sacrifice a bishop for rook besides a pawn to aggressively seize the initiative. Though Ganguly was not in any serious danger at this stage, the Chinese had adequate compensation leading to a promising position. Sensibly, Ganguly returned the rook for a minor piece and later the extra pawn, as well, to foil Bu's designs.

Ganguly gained control of the bright squares on the board to loosen Bu's grip. Bu, pressing hard, again sacrificed a pawn but this time, Ganguly continued more solidly. His queen and knight for Bu's queen and bishop gave him an edge. It all boiled down to both players having less than a minute on their clocks and needed to make the moves to gain the 30-second increment, for every move made, to escape losing on time. As Ganguly put it later, "from that situation, one with better reflexes had to win.'' As it turned out, Bu made the final mistake when facing a checkmating net and resigned in 60 moves.

As a result, Ganguly joined the five overnight leaders — Armenia's Levon Aronian, Russians Artyom Timofeev, Dmitry Jakovenko, home favourite P. Hari Krishna and England's Luke McShane — all of whom were involved in drawn games. Apart from Ganguly, those who won and shared the lead today were, Hungary's World under-18 champion Ferenc Berkes and Poland's Radoslaw Wojtaszek.

Earlier, Poobesh overpowered an erratic Sandipan Chanda to score one of the biggest and timely victories of his career to ensure a nine-game IM-norm. In fact, the first year Commerce student from Chennai's Loyola College needed only a draw today to achieve his goal but Sandipan's two successive dubious queen-moves made things easier. Poobesh went on to gain a rook for bishop and easily won the game. He now has a very good chance of spreading his norm to 10 or more games.

Priya, at whose expense Humpy moved within half-point of Zhao, was required to only play today's match to make a nine-game WIM norm. In fact, irrespective of Priya's 10th round result, her tally of 5.5 points has assured her a 10-game norm. Priya should now concentrate on scoring a minimum of 1.5 points from the remaining rounds for a 13-game WIM norm.

Even as Poobesh and Priya had reasons to be pleased, Prathamesh Mokal missed his second IM-norm after losing to Russia's Vladimir Potkin. Mokal, who needed just a draw for the norm today, can make amends by winning on Tuesday for a 10-game norm.

The results: Ninth round (Indians unless stated): Boys: Levon Aronian (Arm) (6.5) drew with Artyom Timofeev (Rus) (6.5); Dmitry Jakovenko (Rus) (6.5) drew with P. Hari Krishna (6.5); Ernesto Inarkiev (Rus) (6) drew with Luke McShane (Eng) (6.5); Suyra Sekhar Ganguly (6.5) bt Bu Xiangzhi (Chn) (5.5); Dmitrios Masstrovasilis (Gre) (5.5) lost to Ferenc Berkes (Hun) (6.5); Ni Hua (Chn) (5.5) lost to Radoslaw Wojtaszek (Pol) (6.5); Miton Kamil (Pol) (6) bt Mark Paragua (Phi) (5); Stefan Kristjansson (Ice) (5.5) drew with Ehsan Ghaem Maghami (Ira) (5.5); Vladimir Potkin (Rus) (6) bt Prathamesh Mokal (5); Sergey Erenburg (Isr) (5.5) drew with David Smerdon (Aus) (5.5); Neelotpal Das (6) bt Rustem Sadykov (Kaz) (5); Poobesh Anand (6) bt Sandipan Chanda (4.5); Jeremic Veljiko (Yug) (5) drew with Yannick Gozzoli (Fra) (5); S. Satyapragyan (5) drew with Preetham Sharma (5); Stefan Bromberger (Ger) (5) drew with Lim Yee Weng (Mal) (5); Roman Bar (Isr) (5) drew with Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury (5); Amon Simutowe (Zam) (5) drew with S. Kidambi (5); Perez Candelario (Esp) (4.5) lost to Meylis Annaberdiev (Tkm) (5.5); Sergei Azarov (Blr) (5) bt Pontus Carlsson (Swe) (4.5); Soumya Ranjan Mishra (4) lost to Jiri Jirka (Cze) (5); Bogdan Vioreanu (Rom) (4.5) drew with Luke Leong (Sin) (4.5); H. D. Jagadish (5) bt Sam Collins (Ire) (4); Deepan Chakkravarthy (5) bt David Kjaransson (Ice) (4); Dmitry Poliakov (Blr) (4) lost to Stephan Glinert (Can) (5); Asauskas Henrikas (Lit) (5) bt R. Siddharth (4); Li Qun (Chn) (5) bt G. N. Gopal (4); G. Rohit (5) bt Akshayraj Kore (4); Darban Varighan (Ira) (5) bt Sriram Sarja (4); Rishipal Singh (4) drew with Arghyadip Das (4); Vikramaditya Kamble (4.5) bt Athula Russel (Sri) (3.5); Steve Geinaert (Bel) (4.5) bt Arjun Tiwari (3.5); Sayantan Dutta (3.5) lost to P. Phoobalan (4.5); Pratik Shriwas (3.5) lost to Jonas Eriksson (Swe) (4.5); Akash Thakur (4) bt T. S. Pradeep (3); Stefan Macak (Svk) (3.5) drew with Edgar Perriera (Por) (3.5); R. Naveen (4) bt Nikhilesh Kumar (3); Harald Borgrevink (Nor) (4) bt Byomakesh Nayak (3); Wendali Sprenger (Aut) (3) lost to Pranjal Phukan (4); Rahul Sangma (3) drew with Sanchit Agarwal (3); Grame Kafka (Sco) (3.5) bt Gurpreet Singh (2.5); Wilson Cruz (3.5) bt Himanshu Kumar (2.5); Franc Steemkamp (RSA) (2) lost to Alexandre Vuilleummier (Swi) (3.5); Swapnil Hoble (3) bt J. S. S. Phanikanth (1.5); Kosmo Santul (Fin) (3) bt Nehal Shah (Ken) (0).

Girls: Xhao Xue (Chn) (7.5) drew with Wang Yu (Chn) (6); Koneru Humpy (7) bt P. Priya (Ind) (5.5); Makka Ioulia (Gre) (6) drew with Natalia Pogonina (Rus) (6); Elmira Khasanova (Rus) (5.5) lost to Nadezhda Kostinseva (Rus) (6.5); Eva Moser (Aut) (5.5) drew with Calotescu Cristina (Rom) (6); Eketerina Ubiennykh (Rus) (5.5) drew with Tatiana Kosintseva (Rus) (5.5); Matras Agieszka (Pol) (4.5) lost to Tian Tian (Chn) (6); Sofya Zigangirova (Kaz) (5) drew with Polina Churun (Blr) (5); Tania Sachdev (5) drew with Ljilja Drljevic (Yug) (5); Savic Marjana (Yug) (5) drew with N. Vinuthna (5); Eesha Karavade (5.5) bt Silje Bjerke (Nor) (4.5); Leonie Helm (Ger) (4) lost to Sophie Millet (Fra) (5.5); Anoori Shah (4) lost to D. Harika (5); Tana Holusova (Cze) (5) bt Cindy Tsai (US) (4); Chandra Hawsa (5) bt C. Delphin (4); Jana Jackova (Cze) (4) drew with C. V. Rajalakshmi (4); Y. Pratibha (4.5) bt Nimmy George (3.5); M. Kasturi (3.5) lost to Ketaki Kulkarni (4.5); Trujillo Delgado (Esp) (4.5) bt H. Nilavoli (4.5); Jennitha Anto (3.5) lost to M. Priyadarshini (4); Soumya Swaminathan (3) lost to M. Rajadarshini (4); Margarida Coimbra (Por) (4) bt Sarune Lapinskaite (Lit) (3); J. E. Kavitha (4) bt Veronica Breen (Swe) (3); Liyana Indeevarie (Sri) (2) lost to Anuprita Patil (2.5); Maygozel Kurbanova (Tkm) (3) bt Nabeela Farheen (2.5); Iara Santana (Bra) (3) bye.

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