The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Anup and Deep in lead

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Oct 02, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Sport

Sport - Chess

Anup and Deep in lead

Rakesh Rao

NAGPUR: With the Grandmasters finding the going increasingly difficult, International Masters Anup Deshmukh and Deep Sengupta won in contrasting ways to share the lead with an all-win sequence after the fifth round of the Commonwealth chess championship here on Wednesday.

Deshmukh, a former member of the Indian Olympiad team, got the better of Chennai lad S.P. Sethuraman in a tactical battle lasting 50 moves.

Sengupta benefited from the generosity of Pakistan’s Mahmood Lodhi who tried to force the issue in a drawn position and lost in 75 moves.

Deshmukh and Sengupta are followed by six players at 4.5 points and a further 17 with four points each.

Short draws

On a day when a half-hour power-cut during the round proved a major irritant for the players, top seed Nigel Short had reasons to be disappointed with himself after drawing with Shashikant Kutwal.

Short, who lost the third round to Rahul Sangma, looked in danger of losing again when Kutwal won a rook for a minor piece. But thereafter, Short defended well to hold the position for a draw in 44 moves of Alekhine Defence.

Though second seed Surya Shekhar Ganguly took a quick nine-move draw against B.T. Murali Krishnan to virtually enjoy a ‘rest day’ in this gruelling 11-round competition, GMs like Parimarjan Negi, P. Magesh Chandran and Neelotpal Das lost to Suvrajit Saha, Pankaj Joshi and T. Purushothaman in that order.

Saha avenges loss

Saha avenged the loss suffered in Margao recently, Pankaj stunned Magesh with black pieces in 57 moves and an unpredictable Purushothaman nailed Neelotpal in 50 moves.

Abhijit Kunte, World junior champion Abhijeet Gupta and former champion Dibyendu Barua struggled in varying degrees to draw against M. Shyam Sundar, Akshat Khamparia and S. Nitin.

M. Vinay Kumar and Ramnath Bhuvanesh surprised IMs Aleksandar Wohl (Australia) and Akshayraj Kore.

The results (Indians unless stated): Fifth round: B.T. Murali Krishnan (4.5) drew with Surya Shekhar Ganguly (4.5); Mahmood Lodhi (4) lost to Deep Sengupta (5); Anup Deshmukh (5) bt S.P. Sethuraman (4); Suvrajit Saha (4.5) bt Parimarjan Negi (3.5); S. Arun Prasad (4.5) bt Arghyadip Das (3.5); Rahul Sangma (3.5) lost to Aswin Jayaram (4.5); S. Satyapragyan (4.5) bt Varugeese Koshy (3.5); Shashikant Kutwal (3.5) drew with Nigel Short (Eng, 3.5); Ziaur Rahman (4) bt S. Meenakshi (3); Abhijit Kunte(3.5) drew with M. Shyam Sundar (3.5); Abhijeet Gupta (3.5) drew with Akshat Khamparia (3.5); R.R. Laxman (4) bt Praveen Kumar (3); S. Nitin (3.5) drew with Dibyendu Barua (3.5); J. Ramakrishna (3) lost to Enamul Hossain (Ban, 4); P. Magesh Chandran (3) lost to Pankaj Joshi (4); Deepan Chakkravarthy (4) bt Mehar Chinna Reddy (3); T. Purushothaman (4) bt Neelotpal Das (3); M.R. Venkatesh (4) bt Prasanna Rao (3); K. Priyadarshan (3.5) drew with G. Rohit (3.5); Soumya Swaminathan (3.5) drew with S. Kidambi (3.5); Niaz Murshed (Ban, 4) bt Vinoth Kumar (3); P.D.S. Girinath (4) bt N. Srinath (3); G.B. Joshi (3.5) bt P. Konguvel (3.5); Saptarshi Roy (3.5) drew with P. Priya (3.5); Sohan Phadke (3) lost to P. Karthikeyan (4); Ramnath Bhuvanesh (4) bt Akshayraj Kore (3); M. VinayKumar (4) bt Aleksandar Wohl (Aus, 3); Vikramaditya Kamble (3.5) drew with M.K.A. Russell (Sri, 3.5); Lanka Ravi (3.5) drew with Fenil Shah (3.5).

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sport