The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Diwakar, Tejas Bakre lose

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Tuesday, Dec 19, 2006
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Diwakar, Tejas Bakre lose

Rakesh Rao

VALSAD: For the last six months, Jharkhand's Diwakar Prasad Singh has been under the scanner after producing a series of stunning results. Besides the All India Chess Federation (AICF) and the Chess Players Association of India (CPAI), the game's leading websites worldwide are keen to unearth the secret of his "success" in the past year.

Deemed guilty of using technology in getting "outside help" during matches, this International Master had arrived at this industrial town to prove a point or two. However, the third seed took off on the wrong foot and went down rather tamely to Woman Grandmaster Swati Ghate in the opening round of the Atul 44th National `A' chess championship.

Not surprisingly, a number of leading players in the competition were felt vindicated on a day when 14 leaders collected a point each.

Apart from Diwakar, the other notable name to lose was Grandmaster Tejas Bakre. The 12th seed faced checkmate against Roktim Bandyopadhyay and gave up in 23 moves of Queen's Indian Defence. The top two GMs, Surya Shekhar Ganguly and Abhijit Kunte opened by drawing against G. Rohit and Himanshu Sharma, respectively.

Unenviable position

Coming back to Diwakar, this young man is in an unenviable position. And in all fairness, this Jharkhand player deserves a chance to explain his position.

"I feel, I have been declared guilty of a crime that I have not committed. I am being treated like a cheat without anyone giving me a hearing. But I am here to prove a point. I have won in the past due to the hard work that I've put in and not because of any outside help," said Diwakar to The Hindu. On this day, Diwakar resigned in 34 moves when he lost a piece under mounting time pressure.

Diwakar, a surprise member of the Indian team for the Turin Olympiad, tied for the National title which eventually went for the third straight year to Surya Shekhar Ganguly.

"If you go through all his games of the last Nationals, you'll notice, move after move, his choice matches those suggested by a software (used by the players in their preparations). Even Viswanathan Anand cannot reel off the best moves with such consistency as Diwakar did in the last National `A'," was Ganguly's vehement declaration.

The results (first round): Surya Shekhar Ganguly drew with G. Rohit; Himanshu Sharma drew with Abhijit Kunte; Diwakar Prasad Singh lost to Swati Ghate; V. Saravanan lost to Deepan Chakkravarthy; Pravin Thipsay bt B.T. Muralikrishnan; Suvrajit Saha drew with R.B. Ramesh; Neelotpal Das drew with D. Harika; Vikramaditya Kamble lost to Abhijeet Gupta; Dibyendu Barua bt P.D.S. Girinath; Prathamesh Mokal lost to M.R. Venkatesh; S. Kidambi bt T.S. Ravi; Roktim Bandyopadhyay bt Tejas Bakre; Arun Prasad bt Varugeese Koshy; R.R. Laxman lost to Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury; K. Ratnakaran bt Ashwin Jayaram; M.S. Thej Kumar drew with Deep Sengupta; S. Poobesh Anand drew with Eesha Karavade; Abhishek Das drew with Lanka Ravi; P.

Konguvel bt Somak Palit; N. Sudhakar Babu drew with G.B. Prakash; G.N. Gopal drew with Syed Anwar Shazuli; Swapnil Dhopade lost to Valay Parikh; Sudhir Kumar Sinha bye.

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