The Hindu : Sport : Prathamesh causes a flutter

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Wednesday, Jan 14, 2009
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Sport

Prathamesh causes a flutter

Rakesh Rao

NEW DELHI: Some of the leading contenders found themselves in the ‘go slow’ zone after facing unexpected resistance, while eight players maintained their all-win record after four rounds of the Parsvnath International Open chess tournament at the Modern School here on Tuesday.

In the time between second seed Yuriy Kuzubov’s 15-move draw against youngster S. P. Sethuraman and third seed Surya Shekhar Ganguly’s 88-move deadlock against Arghyadip Das, fourth seed Parimarjan Negi punished an erratic Kazakh Olzhas Khamzin in just 30 moves to be among the leaders.

Surprising was the defeats of Grandmasters Abhijit Kunte, Anuar Ismagambetov and Saidali Iuldachev, seeded five to seven.

Though Kunte ended up on the losing side against Kazakh International Master Boris Katalymov in 52 moves,

Prathamesh Mokal and C. Praveen Kumar accounted for Ismagambetov (Kazakhstan) and the 2004 champion Iuldachev (Uzbekistan) respectively to bring cheer to the home camp.

Prathamesh, a former National ‘B’ champion from Pune, came up with a calculated sacrifice of a rook for a knight and pawn in his Spanish game against Ismagambetov. This also exposed his rival’s king.

However, there was not much that Mokal could do and was thinking of offering a draw. However, to Mokal’s delight, Kazakh walked into a checkmating net and resigned in 41 moves. Former Commonwealth champion Atanu Lahiri overcame a testing opening phase to hold fellow Kolkatan Dibyendu Barua.

Another GM Neelotpal Das had to split the point with local veteran G. B. Joshi while Chinmay Kulkarni maintained his fine unbeaten run by holding former National champion P. Konguvel.

The results (Indians unless stated):

Fourth round: S. P. Sethuraman (3.5) drew with Yuriy Kuzubov (Ukr, 3.5); Surya Shekhar Ganguly (3.5) drew with Arghyadip Das (3.5); Olzhas Khamzin (Kaz, 3) lost to Parimarjan Negi (4); Abhijit Kunte (3) lost to N. Boris Katalymov (Kaz, 4); Prathamesh Mokal (4) bt Anuar Ismagambetov (Kaz, 3); Saidali Iuldachev (Uzb, 3) lost to C. Praveen Kumar (4); Suvrajit Saha (3) lost to Shukhrat Safin (Uzb, 4); Mikhail Ulibin (Rus, 4) bt R. Arun Karthik (3); R. Ashwath (3) lost to Petr Kostenko (Kaz, 4); Atanu Lahiri (3.5) drew with Dibyendu Barua (3.5); Neelotpal Das (3.5) drew with G. B. Joshi (3.5); Vinay Kumar Matta (3.5) drew with M. R. Lalith Babu (3.5); Utkal Ranjan Sahoo (3) lost to Vidit Gujarati (4); P. Magesh Chandran (3.5) bt Fenil Shah (3).

Arkadi Eremeevich (Rus, 2.5) lost to Evgeny Gleizerov (Rus, 3.5); M. R. Venkatesh (3.5) bt D. P. Singh (2.5); Chinmay Kulkarni (3) drew with P. Konguvel (3); Justin Sarkar (3.5) bt Farhan Mohammad (Jor, 2.5); Abhishek Das (2.5) lost to Pravin Thipsay (3.5); P. Karthikeyan (3.5) bt Anwesh Upadhyaya (2.5).

Deep Sengupta (3.5) bt Arindam Mukherjee (2.5); Varugeese Koshy (3) drew with B. T. Murali Krishnan (3); Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury (3) drew with Gurpreet Pal Singh (3); Mohammad Ali (Ban, 2.5) lost to Sriram Jha (3.5); K. Ratnakaran (2.5) lost to Shreyansh Daklia (3.5).

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