The Hindu : Sport : Abhijeet registers win

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Apr 27, 2006

Sport

Sport

Abhijeet registers win

Dubai: International Master Abhijeet Gupta scored a thumping victory over Woman Grandmaster Aarthie Ramaswamy and moved to 2.5 points after the end of the third round of the Dubai International Open chess championship.

Double Grandmaster norm holder Parimarjan Negi scored over Lara Stock of Croatia to take his tally to two points out of a possible three.

Top-seeded Izoria Zviad showed no mercy to compatriot Zurab Sturua and posted his third victory to remain in joint lead.

Stiff resistance

Among the Indians at the top, only M.R. Lalith Babu could give a stiff resistance against frequent India visitor GM Pavel Kotsur of Kazakhstan, but in the end the experience of the latter helped him take the full point.

Grandmaster R.B. Ramesh and International Master S. Satyapragyan tried to find some attack against GM Darmen Sadvakasov of Kazakhstan and GM Sergey Fedorchuk of Ukraine respectively but did not succeed in the end while S.P. Sethuraman blew his chances against Armenian GM Tigran Petrosian.

However, on the lower boards it turned out to be a better day for the huge Indian contingent here as D. Sai Srinivas, Prathamesh Mokal and World under-10 champion Sahaj Grover romped home with fine victories.

Grover's first win

For Grover, this was the first victory in the event that helped him open his account after two losses. Abhijeet Gupta was a class act against Aarthie Ramaswamy in a Nimzo Indian defence game. Playing white, Abhijeet faced a mild opening surprise but was soon to place his feet firmly on the ground. The middle game surfaced with Abhijeet having a slightly better position and it turned out to be a fine grind by the 16-year-old as he slowly but surely ensured improvement in his position while at the same time confining Aarthie's pieces to passivity.

Landing in time trouble, Aarthie failed to come up with best defence and resigned on her 30th turn.

After a rather dismal first round loss, Parimarjan Negi struck back with his second victory on the trot. It turned out to be a positional game from the youngest Indian International Master who played the black side of a Queen's Indian defence. Like Negi, Lara Stock is also recognised as one of the best talents around but in the third round the Croatian girl proved no match despite having a reasonable position for the major part of the game. Negi wrapped up the issue in 38 moves.

Important results (Round 3, Indians unless specified): Izoria Zviad (Geo, 3) beat Zurab Sturua (Geo, 2); R.B. Ramesh (2) lost to Darmen Sadvakasov (Kaz, 3); Gabriel Sargissian (Arm, 3) bt Odeev Handszar (Tkm, 2); El Taher Fouad (Egy, 2.5) drew with Pantsulaia Levan (Geo, 2.5); Evgenij Miroshnichenko (Ukr, 3) bt Adly Ahmed (Egy, 2); S. Satyapragyan (2) lost to Sergey Fedorchuk (Ukr, 3); M.R. Lalith Babu (2) lost to Pavel Kotsur (Kaz, 3); Tigran Petrosian (Arm, 2.5) bt S.P. Sethuraman (2); Abbasov Farid (Aze, 2.5) bt G.B. Joshi (1.5); Abhijeet Gupta (2.5) bt Aarthie Ramaswamy (1.5); N. Srinath (1.5) lost to S.A. Sarsam (Irq, 2.5); Lara Stock (Cro, 1) lost to Parimarjan Negi (2); Vishal Sareen (2) bt Ihsan Jawad (Ple, 1); Mohannad Al Qasem (Jor, 1) lost to Prathamesh Mokal (2); Shatrughan Jha (1) lost to D. Sai Srinivas (2); Prasanna Rao (1) lost to O.T. Anilkumar (2).

Gurpreet Pal Singh (2) bt Zibaei Abdoulla (Iri, 1); Kruttika Nadig (2) bt Al-Housa Khalil (Ple, 1); W.A. Khan (1) lost to Robin Stellwagen (Ger, 2); C.N. Vaidya (2) bt Dhyani Dave (1); Shiven Khosla (1.5) drew with Soumitra Majumdar (1.5); Ramnath Bhuvanesh (1.5) bt Al-Sulaiti Ghanem (Qat, 0.5); Axel Valerio (Phi, 0.5) lost to Shantanu Lahiri (1.5); K. Priyadharshan ( 0.5) drew with Natun Dasgupta (0.5); Sahaj Grover (1) bt Rahmani Behrooz (Iri, 0). — PTI

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