The Hindu : Sport : No stopping Ganguly

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No stopping Ganguly

Arvind Aaron

CHESS / Pips Ratnakaran on tie-break for title

— Photo: S. Thanthoni

CHAMPION: Surya Shekhar Ganguly receiving the National ‘A’ chess championship trophy from M.V.M. Velmurugan (left), CEO, Velammal Educational Trust.

CHENNAI: Grandmaster Surya Shekhar Ganguly of Indian Oil, Kolkata, retained his title in the Velammal National ‘A’ chess championship that concluded here at the M.A.C. Stadium on Friday.

The three players who went into the round with title chances had different results. Ganguly made a draw with the white pieces against Negi to win the title on tie-break.

K. Ratnakaran of Southern Railway, Kozhikode, finished second with his fourth win in a row, an upset win over Grandmaster Neelotpal Das.

G.N. Gopal of Bharat Petroleum, Aluva, was defeated by teammate Arun Prasad of Salem and finished third. With Gopal’s defeat, all 44-players lost at least one game.

Ganguly became the first player to receive the record prize fund of Rs. 1,00,000 from M.V.M. Velmurugan, CEO, Velammal Educational Trust.

He also equalled one of the many records held by Manuel Aaron, which is winning the title five times in a row. Ganguly ranked this win as his third favourite of his five titles.

“The first time was the best at Kozhikode in 2003, then Valsad in 2006 and this one at Chennai will be my third choice.”

Not only for Negi

“I had to prepare not only for Negi my opponent, but also for Ubilava, his trainer, who has worked with the Indian team as trainer and is aware of my weaknesses,” said Ganguly.

His final round game had enough drama.

Facing a Najdorf, Ganguly played it safe and kept an eye on the Gopal game. With Gopal in trouble, he opted to draw and secure his title.

But Ganguly overlooked a pawn thrust on the 22nd move and was slightly worse. Negi also refused his draw offer.

In the final position, Ganguly turned the tide and had a strongly-placed rook and decided to take a draw offered by Negi even as Gopal slipped into a worse position and had no chance of winning.

Arun Prasad handed Gopal his only defeat of the event on the 64th turn in a rook ending.

Ganguly who started brilliantly with a rating performance of 2730 from the first nine games was a shadow of himself in the last four games in which he barely managed 1.5.

Ratnakaran played his career-best tournament to defeat Neelotpal Das with the black pieces in a queen ending and tied for the first place with Ganguly on nine points. Ganguly won the title on tie-break with his average rating of opponents at 2458 to Ratnakaran’s 2434.

The National ‘A’ will be held in an all-play-all format next time with 14 players.

Important results (round 13): Arun Prasad bt G.N. Gopal, S.S. Ganguly drew with P. Negi, Neelotpal Das lost to K. Ratnakaran, A. Kunte drew with D. Barua, M.R. Venkatesh bt B. Adhiban, S.P. Sethuraman drew with S.R. Chowdhury, P.M. Thipsay bt Vidit Gujrathi, Deepan Chakkravarthy bt Sriram Jha, Tejas Bakre drew with P. Mokal.

Final placings (tie-break order): 1-2 S.S. Ganguly (PSPB), K. Ratnakaran (Rly) 9/13 each, 3-5 G.N. Gopal, S. Arun Prasad, M.R. Venkatesh (all PSPB) 8.5 each, 6 Abhijit Kunte (PSPB) 8. 7-12 S.P. Sethuraman (TN), D. Barua (WB), Deepan Chakkravarthy (PSPB), S.R. Chowdhury (Rly), Parimarjan Negi (Del), P.M. Thipsay (BSB) 7.5 each. 13-20 Tejas Bakre (IA), B. Adhiban (TN), Vidit Gujrathi (Mah), Neelotpal Das (PSPB), P.S. Mokal (Mah), Saptarshi Roy (Rly), S. Kidambi (PSPB), Ashwin Jayaram (TN) 7 each.

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