The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Himanshu retains lead

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Friday, Dec 07, 2007
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Sport - Chess

Himanshu retains lead

Rakesh Rao

NEW DELHI: The lead remained with Himanshu Sharma but the number of those closest to him rose to 13 as the percentage of decisive games went up dramatically on the top-20 boards in the sixth round of the Parsvnath Commonwealth chess championship here.

Himanshu settled for a 22-move draw with S. Arun Prasad on the top board and stayed ahead with 5.5 points. Though the result ended Himanshu’s winning streak, it kept his overnight lead intact at the Siri Fort Sports Complex on Thursday.

On the second board, Parimarjan Negi was a shade lucky to escape with a draw against Vikramaditya Kamble who failed to capitalise on the youngster’s not-so-sound exchange of a rook for a bishop. Third seed Abhijit Kunte was equally lucky to hold Australia’s Aleksander Wohl after top seed Surya Shekhar Ganguly pulled off a much needed victory over fellow GM Reefat Bin Sattar from Bangladesh.

Bangladesh’s Abdulla Al-Rakib benefited from a sequence of rash sacrifices by Pakistan’s Mahmood Lodhi to gain a point. Lanka Ravi showed no mercy to his younger Andhra statemate G. Rohit. In another game involving two IMs, D. Harika proved that her rating superiority of 106 points over the far more experienced V. Saravanan was fully justified. GMs R.B. Ramesh and Pravin Thipsay kept alive their chances of an honourable finish. Ramesh downed Roktim Bandyopadhyay while Thipsay defeated R. Ashwath.

Nisha downs Vaibhav

Nisha Mohota ended the dream unbeaten run of Vaibhav Suri but another Delhi-lad Sahaj Grover annihilated Bangladesh’s Aminul Islam to brighten his prospects of a maiden IM norm. An interesting face-off, between Tania Sachdev and the Asian girls’ champion Mary Ann Gomes ended with honours even.

The results (Indians unless stated): Sixth round: S. Arun Prasad (5) drew with Himanshu Sharma (5.5); Vikramaditya Kamble (5) drew with Parimarjan Negi (5); Surya Shekhar Ganguly (5) bt Reefat Bin Sattar (Ban) (4.5); Abhijit Kunte (4.5) drew with Aleksandar Wohl (Aus) (4.5); Abdulla Al-Rakib (Ban) (5) bt Mahmood Lodhi (Pak) (4); Saptarshi Roy (4.5) drew with Deepan Chakkravarthy (4.5); Lanka Ravi (5) bt G. Rohit (4); D. Harika (5) bt V. Saravanan (4); R. B. Ramesh (5) bt Roktim Bandhyopadhyay (4).

R. Ashwath (4) lost to Pravin Thipsay (5); Abhijeet Gupta (4.5) drew with M. S. Thejkumar (4.5); Ram Prakash (4) lost to Sriram Jha (5); M. R. Venkatesh (4.5) drew with R. Premnath (4.5); G. B. Joshi (4) lost to S. Kidambi (5); K. Ratnakaran (5) bt Antonio Viani D’cunha (4); Nisha Mohota (5) bt Vaibhav Suri (4); Sudhakar Babu (3.5) lost to Gawain Jones (4.5); Dibyendu Barua (4.5) bt Rahul Shetty (3.5); Shashikant Kutwal (4.5) bt Aswin Jayaram (3.5).

David Smerdon (Aus) (4.5) bt Sai Srinivas (3.5); Tejas Bakre (4) drew with Debashis Das (4); J. Ramakrishna (4) drew with P. D. S. Girinath (4); Deep Sengupta (4.5) bt Prasenjit Datta (3.5); Nikhil Shyam (3.5) lost to Niaz Murshed (Ban) (4.5); Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury (4) drew with Vinay Kumar Matta (4); Tania Sachdev (4) drew with Mary Ann Gomes (4); Imocha Laisram (3.5) lost to D. V. Prasad (4.5); R. R. Laxman (4) drew with Swapnil Dhopade (4); Kiran Manisha Mohanty (3.5) lost to P. Konguvel (4.5); Aminul Islam (Ban) (3.5) lost to Sahaj Grover (4.5).

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