The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Laxman wins with a round to spare

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Dec 22, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Sport

Sport - Chess

Laxman wins with a round to spare

Arvind Aaron

Chennai: International Master R.R. Laxman of Integral Coach Factory (Chennai) won the St. Joseph’s National under-25 chess championship with a round to spare here on Sunday.

Laxman crushed talented Chennai schoolboy V.A.V. Rajesh in 34 moves with white pieces from a modern defence opening.

Laxman went four pawns up in the rooks and knight ending when the teenager resigned.

Laxman took his score to 7.5 points from eight games — one and a half points ahead of the rest of the players. In joint second place on six points are five players: Deep Sengupta, Arjun Tiwari, P. Karthikeyan, Ram S. Krishnan and Rajesh.

Third National title

It was Laxman’s third National title.

Earlier, he won the National under-12 in 1994 and the National under-25 in 2005.

“My confidence level was high and I was able to play high quality chess,” said Laxman while speaking to The Hindu.

“No time to celebrate,” said Laxman who leaves for Dubai for the Asian club team tournament at Al-Ain on Wednesday.

In 2007 Laxman created history winning eight FIDE-rated events in India.

In 2008 he has maintained the huge rating gains of the last year.

Important results: Round eight: R.R. Laxman 7.5 bt V.A.V. Rajesh 6; P. Karthikeyan 6 drew with Ram S. Krishnan 6.

P. Sivasankari 5.5 lost to Deep Sengupta 6; Arjun Tiwari 6 bt V. Haribalu 5; Pradeep Kumar 5.5 drew with Navin Kanna 5.5.

Prathamesh Mokal 5.5 bt Ajay Srikanth 4.5; G. Akash 4.5 lost to Praveen Kumar 5.5; R. Siddharth 5.5 bt C. Sivakumar 4.5; Anand Sivasankar 4.5 lost to Nimmy George 5.5; Ganesh Babu 4 lost to J.S. Daklia 5.5.

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

Sport