The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Vinay Kumar stuns Abhijit Kunte

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Vinay Kumar stuns Abhijit Kunte

Rakesh Rao

CHESS / Abhijit suffers rare defeat with black pieces

NAGPUR: Many reputed names took a beating and several others got away with honours even following a sensational second round action in the Commonwealth chess championship here on Monday.

A slightly indisposed fourth seeded Grandmaster Abhijit Kunte suffered a rare defeat with black pieces and headed the casualty list that included International Masters Himanshu Sharma, B. Adhiban, Prathamesh Mokal and Malaysia’s Mas Hafizulhelmi.

Those wise enough to take a draw against lesser rivals were GMs Abhijeet Gupta, Bangladesh’s Enamul Hossain, P. Magesh Chandran, Neelotpal Das and veteran Bangladeshi Niaz Murshed, besides IMs like S. Arun Prasad, M. R. Venkatesh, K. Ratnakaran, triple-GM norm holder M. S. Thejkumar, Saptarshi Roy and Asian junior champion P. Karthikeyan.

The leading seeds, Nigel Short and Surya Shekhar Ganguly, continued to be far from convincing even after managing to remain in the 51-playerleaders’ pack. At one stage, soon-to-be-18 Arun Karthik looked like bringing down Short or at least force a draw.

But Short drew from his reserves to win in 47 moves. Ganguly, too, needed 52 moves with white pieces to tame the lanky Akash Thakur on the second board.

Biggest upset

In the day’s biggest upset, Andhra Bank’s Vinay Kumar got his calculations right and smartly traded his queen for a rook, a bishopand a knight to tactically outplay Kunte.

In this 58-move battle, Vinay went on to trap a knight and moved within a move of delivering a checkmate when Kunte resigned.

The victory was first over a GM for Vinay, the reigning National under-25 champion from Hyderabad.

Fourteen-year-old Padmini Rout proved equal to Bangladesh’s 10th seeded GM Enamul Hossain in 28 moves, the vastly-experienced local taxman Satchidanand Soman held 11th seeded Magesh in 52 moves and Sri Lanka’s M. K. A. Russell forced Murshed to sign peace in 32 moves.

Neelotpal Das settled for a 73-move draw with R.A. Pradeep Kumar.

R. Premnath battled for 87 moves to hold ninth seeded GM in-waiting S. Arun Prasad. Four days after winning the National ‘B’ title, 16-year-old B. Adhiban surrendered to fellow Tamil Nadu player Vinoth Kumar before comeback lady Saheli, watched by husband Dibyendu and son Dishan, stunned Mas Hafizulhelmi.

The results (Indians unless stated):

Second round: R. Arun Karthik (1) lost to Nigel Short (Eng, 2); Surya Shekhar Ganguly (2) bt Akash Thakur (1); Ophoff Ja (RSA, 1) lost to Ziaur Rahman (Ban, 2). Abhijit Kunte (1) lost to M. Vinay Kumar (2); R. Balasubramanium (1.5) drew with Abhijeet Gupta (1.5); Parimarjan Negi (2) bt Mohammad Javed (Ban, 1).

R. Premnath (1.5) drew with S. Arun Prasad (1.5); Enamul Hossain (Ban, 1.5) drew with Padmini Rout (1.5); Satchidanand Soman (1.5) drew with P. Magesh Chandran (1.5); Kiran Manisha Mohanty (1) lost to Deepan Chakkravarthy (2).

Neelotpal Das (2) bt R.A. Pradeep Kumar (1); Mehar Chinna Reddy (1.5) drew with M.R. Venkatesh (1.5); G. Rohit (2) bt Kruttika Nadig (1); DeepSengupta (2) bt Ramnath Bhuvanesh (1); Prasanna Rao (1.5) drew with K. Ratnakaran (1.5); S. Kidambi (2) bt Debaraj Chatterjee (1).

N. Srinath(1.5) drew with M.S. Thejkumar (1.5); M.K.A. Russell (Sri, 1.5) drew with Niaz Murshed (Ban, 1.5); Aswin Jayaram (2) bt G. C. Aniruddha (1); Abdul Jabbar (1) lost to Sriram Jha (2); S.P. Sethuraman (2) bt Saurabh Kherdekar (1); E. P. Nirmal (1) lost to P.D.S. Girinath (2).

Himanshu Sharma (1) lost to J. Venkata Ramana (2); Vinoth Kumar (2) bt B. Adhiban (1); P. Konguvel (2) bt Bhagyashree Sathe (1); B.T. Murali Krishnan (2) bt P. Priya (1); Anwesh Upadhyaya (1.5) drew with Saptarshi Roy (1.5); Gurpreet Singh Maras (1.5) drew with P. Karthikeyan (1.5); Akshayraj Kore (2) bt R. Preethi (1); Aleksandar Wohl (Aus, 2) bt Pon N. Krithika (1); P. Shyam Nikhil (1) lost to Utkal Ranjan Sahoo (2); Fenil Shah (2) bt Prathamesh Mokal (1).

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