The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Ratnakaran stays in lead

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Sunday, Nov 04, 2007
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Sport - Chess

Ratnakaran stays in lead

KOCHI: Southern Railway’s top-seeded K. Ratnakaran hung on to his lead after the penultimate round of the Sunny Diamonds-RSC all-India FIDE-rated chess tournament at the Regional Sports Centre here on Saturday evening.

The Kozhikode-based International Master defeated ICF’s C. Natarajan in the eighth round and now has a half point lead over Tamil Nadu’s Vinoth Kumar, his nearest challenger. Ratnakaran had signed the peace treaty with ICF’s seventh-seeded IM R. Balasubramanian in the earlier round.

Tamil Nadu’s 21st seed Vinoth Kumar who upset sixth-seeded Shyam Nikhil yesterday, continued his good run, jolting No.8 A.Shankar and R.Balasubramanian, the seventh seed, in today’s two rounds.

The results (eighth round): C. Natarajan (ICF, 6) lost to K. Ratnakaran (S. Rly, 7.5), R. Balasubramanian (ICF, 6) lost to Vinoth Kumar (TN, 7), R.R. Laxman (TN, 6.5) bt T.J. Suresh Kumar (ICF, 5.5), B.S. Shivananda (Karn, 6) drew with P.V. Gireesh (Ker, 6), K. Gunasekharan (ICF, 6) drew with M.V. Lakshmk Narayanan (TN, 6), J. Sridhar (TN, 5.5) lost to Syed Anwar Shazuli (ICF, 6.5), S. Ganesh Babu (TN, 5.5) los to M.B. Muralidharan (6.5), K.R. Madhusoodanan (Ker, 5) lost to A. Shankar (S. Rly, 6), P. Saravana Krishnan (TN, 6) bt Antonio Viani D’cunha (Karn, 5), P.G. Muraleedharan (Ker, 5) lost to Prasanna Rao (Mah, 6), E.P. Nirmal (Ker, 5.5) drew with Tejas Ravichandran (TN, 5.5).

Seventh round: Ratnakaran drew with R. Balasubramanian, S.A. Shazuli drew with R.R. Laxman, M.B. Muralidharan drew with Shivananda, P. Karthikeyan lost to C. Natarajan, T.J. Suresh Kumar drew with K. Gunasekharan, Vinoth Kumar bt A. Shankar, Tejas Ravichandran drew with P. Saravana Krishnan, K.S. Anand Reddy lost to J. Sridhar, P.V. Gireesh bt V.P. Manoharan. – Principal Correspondent

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