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Ramesh lets Barua off the hook

By P. K. Ajith Kumar

Photo: Vivek Bendre

Abhijit Kunte of India watches K. Sasikiran playing against Safin Shukhrat of Uzbekistan in the fifth round of the Commonwealth chess championship in Mumbai on Wednesday.

MUMBAI APRIL 23. Dibyendu Barua is the great escape artist of Indian chess. This gifted Grandmaster from Kolkata has this talent to wriggle himself out of seemingly hopeless situations. It's his remarkable skills in the endgame that often saves him the day.

But on Wednesday at Hotel Tulip Star, in the fifth round of the Commonwealth chess championship, incorporating the International Open tournament, it was the generosity of his rival R.B. Ramesh that let Barua off the hook. The Chennai-based youngster, who looked well on course to a well-deserved victory, blundered and lost.

That meant Barua was the only Indian in the lead after five rounds. He shared the lead with Zhang Peng Xiang of China and Nguyen Anh Dung of Vietnam (4.5 points each).

Abhijit Kunte, the amiable GM from Pune who hasn't been playing anywhere near to his potential for quite some time now, held the top seed Rustam Kasimdzhanov to a draw on the top board.

On the second, K. Sasikiran, seeded second, drew with Shukhrat Safin of Uzbekistan. Another top Indian GM and defending champion Pendyala Harikrishna though had another eminently forgettable day, losing to compatriot N. Sudhakar Babu.

Young Deepan Chakravarthy, the defending Asian junior champion, did no harm to his maiden GM norm hopes when he agreed to a quick draw with Surya Shekhar Ganguyly. T.S. Ravi, also on the hunt for his first GM norm, held Saidali Iuldachev to a draw to take his second successive half-a-point off a GM (he had drawn with Igor Rausis on Tuesday).

There were a quite few upsets on the lower boards. And it was kind of babies' day out, with little Indian kids turning the table on International Masters, as Akshayraj Kore beat Tejas Bakre, Deep Sengupta defeated Rahul Shetty, G.N. Gopal prevailed over Atanu Lahiri and Rahul Sangma overcame Roktim Bandyopadhyay.

Ramesh, who had shocked Tahir Vakhidov of Uzbekitan in the last round, was playing white for a second successive day and it was French Tarrasche yet again.

He manoeuvred his pieces well for a promising attack and put Barua under a lot of pressure, and moved into a clearly superior position. Barua even offered a draw on the 25th move, but Ramesh, understandably confident at that stage, declined. Five moves later, though he blundered a pawn and it was soon all over. He resigned in 42 moves.

"My position was bad earlier," admitted Barua. "Had I won today my GM norm chances would've been very good," said a disappointed Ramesh. "I don't know why I made that silly mistake."

Harikrishna, who'd lost to Neelotpal Das on Tuesday, played Benko Gambit, and the gambit didn't work. His pieces were badly placed, lost pawns and two pieces for a rook. He resigned on the 45th move.

Important results (fifth round) (Indians unless otherwise specified): Rustam Kasimdzhanov (Uzb) 4 drew with Abhijit Kunte 4; Shukhrat Safin (Uzb) 4 drew with Krishnan Sasikiran 4; Ehsan Ghaem Maghami (IRI) 4 drew with Evgeny Vladimirov (Kaz) 4; Ruslan Sherbakov (Rus) 3.5 lost to Nguyen Anh Dung (Vie) 4.5; Neelotpal Das 3.5 lost to Zhang Peng Xiang (Chn) 4.5; R.B. Ramesh 3.5 lost to Dibyendu Barua 4.5; Vasilios Kotronias (Cyp) 4 bt D.V. Prasad 3; Maxim Sorokin 4 bt V. Saravanan 3; Deepan Chakravarthy 3.5 drew with Surya Shekhar Ganguly 3.5; Alexander Fominyh (Rus) 4 bt Suvrajit Saha 3; Aarthie Ramaswamy 3 lost to Marat Dzhumaev (Uz b) 4; Ruslan Pogorelov (Ukr) 4 bt G. Rohit 3; Sandipan Chanda 4 bt Vikramaditya Kamble 3; Saptarshi Roychoudhuri 3.5 drew with Anup Deshmukh 3.5; D. Harika 3.5 drew with Niaz Murshed (Ban) 3.5; S. Vijayalakshmi 3.5 drew with Sekhar Sahu 3.5; N. Sudhakar Babu 3.5 bt Pendyala Harikrishna 2.5; Tahir Vakhidov (Uzb) 3.5 bt Ravi Hegde 2.5; Igor Rausis (Lat) 3 drew with Aminul Islam (Ban) 3; Saidali Iuldachev (Uzb) 3 drew with T.S. Ravi 3; G.B. Prakash 3 drew with Prathamesh Mokal 3; M. Darban Vaighani (IRI) 3 drew with Lanka Ravi 3; R.R. Laxman 3 drew with K. Ratnakaran 3; Rahul Shetty 2.5 lost to Deep Sengupta 3.5; J. Ramakrishna 3 drew with Dinesh Kumar Sharma 3; Wang Yu (Chn) 3.5 bt C. Natarajan 2.5; Ziaur Rahman 3 bt Vedant Goswami 2; Nasir Ahmad (Ban) 2.5 drew with Enamul Hossain (Ban) 2.5; Tejas Bakre (Ind) 2 lost to Akshayraj Kore 3; Amit Kumar Medda 2 lost to Reefat Bin Sattar (Ban) 3; Sriram Jha 3 bt C.J. Arvind 2; S. Rishipal Singh 2 lost to Abdulla Al Rakib (Ban) 3; Rahul Sangma 3 bt Roktim Bandyopadhyay 2; B.S. Sivanandan 2.5 drew with D. Saisrinivas 2.5; Eesha Karvade 2 lost to Preetham R. Sharma 3; G.N. Gopal 3 bt Atanu Lahiri 2; Wong Zi Jing (Mas) 2 lost to Vishal Shah 3; K. Nikhilesh Kumar 2 lost to Abhijeet Gupta 3.

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