Barua bursts Sasikiran's bubble

By Rakesh Rao

NEW DELHI, JUNE 9. Dibyendu Barua struck when he really needed to. With one big win over leader K. Sasikiran, Barua came bouncing back into contention as the title-race warmed up in the National `A' chess championship at the CDCS Eventspecific office hall here on Saturday.

Sasikiran, who won the Asian Zonal championship in Colombo recently but lost to Barua on the way, remained on 8.5 points - half a point ahead of nearest challenger P. Konguvel, who drew with Sriram Jha. Abhijit Kunte, following his quick win over Shekhar Sahu, moved to 7.5 points while Barua climbed to seven points and matched Surya Shekhar Ganguly's tally.

It was important for Barua to progress at the expense of Sasikiran since that alone could have significantly bridged the gap between them. Another factor which made Barua go all out today was his superior win-loss ratio against Sasikiran.

Therefore, it did not come as a surprise when a positionally- better Barua declined Sasikiran's draw-offer in the middle-game after their match followed the familiar line of Sicilian Schevengen. The opening was similar to the one seen in their latest clash in Colombo but here, too, Sasikiran tried to be different without being better.

Enjoying tremendous space advantage, Barua managed to advance his pawns, one on each flank. The choked pieces of Sasikiran were struggling to find the right squares even as Barua made the most of the opposite-coloured bishops on the board. A desperate Sasikiran gave up a pawn but that hardly brought him much relief. But soon after the first time-control, Barua missed a winning sequence and allowed Sasikiran plenty of counter-play.

Thereafter, it turned out to be a race against time. Barua had to not only defend accurately but also ensure that he did not let go of a good position. With both players having less than a minute on their respective clocks, Barua pushed one of his pawns to the seventh rank. A hopelessly-placed Sasikiran gave one last look at the clock and accepted the inevitable after 62 moves.

``I should have won at least 15-20 moves earlier,'' said Barua after his energy-sapping victory. He, in fact, admitted that he almost got himself into a checkmating combination in time- trouble. ``I had written down the move, too, but luckily I saw what I was getting into and played the right move,'' said Barua with relief written all over his face.

In the only other decisive match, Kunte benefitted greatly by a blunder by veteran Shekhar Sahu on the 14th move of their Catalan game. Sahu's horrendous queen-move left him with an option of either losing his queen or get check-mated on the next move. Sahu realised the futility of continuing and gave up at once.

Later, S. Vijayalakshmi almost met Sasikiran's fate on this day before escaping to victory against the spirited Harika Dronavalli in 69 moves. This 11-year-old is fast proving the find of the championship in which most of the participants have more experience than her age.

In an English Opening game which later got transposed to a position similar to the accelerated dragon variation, Vijayalakshmi's was down two pawns but the inexperience of Harika soon came to the fore. Despite holding a very promising position, with three well-poised passed pawns in the centre, Harika blundered a bishop and failed to find the precise continuation. After the exchange of queens, a relieved Vijayalakshmi traded her knight for the two advanced passed pawns and went on to notch her sixth victory in seven rounds.

Before Vijayalakshmi moved to 6.5 points, younger sister S. Meenakshi had overcome Saheli Dhar in an interesting battle to reach 5.5 points.

In Pirc Defence, Meenakshi did look in a spot of bother when Saheli was threatening to launch a decisive attack down the middle file. Instead of taking a bishop and equalising the position materially, Saheli went on an all-out attack but Meenakshi defended accurately to post a good victory in 36 moves.

Saimeera upstaged Anupama Gokhale in their Modern Defence encounter in 42 moves. Poor development cost Anupama plenty of space and she chose to get some play by sacrificing a pawn. Still in trouble, she sacrificed a rook with a plan to get Saimeera's queen for two pieces. Again, it did not work as Saimeera cleverly saw through Anupama's game-plan. She retained her rook for Anupama's bishop before reaching a winning end-game position.

Swati Ghate tossed away an overwhelmingly superior position with some unimaginative end-game technique to give Dolan Champa Bose an unexpected victory. R. Aarthie and Pallavi Shah defeated Y. Pratibha and M. R. Sangeetha, respectively, after Bhagyashree Thipsay drew with Nisha Mohota.

* The results:

Men (11th round): Surya Shekhar Ganguly (2456) 7 drew with Nassir Wajih (2371) 2.5; Saptarishi Roy (2306) 4 drew with P. Harikrishna (2504) 5.5; Pravin Thipsay (2453) 4.5 drew with K. Murugan (2390) 3.5; Abhijit Kunte (2568) 7.5 bt Shekhar Sahu (2325) 5; V. Saravanan (2428) 2 drew with Neelotpal Das (2423) 3; Dibyendu Barua (2494) 7 bt K. Sasikiran (2611) 8.5; Sriram Jha (2390) 3.5 drew with P. Konguvel (2383) 8; G.B. Prakash (2453) 4.5 bt Atanu Lahiri (2391) 5.5; D. V. Prasad (2440) 6 drew with Neeraj Kumar Mishra (2321) 6.5; Lanka Ravi (2381) 5 bye.

Women (seventh round): S. Vijayalakshmi (2424) 6.5 bt Harika Dronavalli 3; Swati Ghate (2271) 4 bt Dolan Champa Bose (2187) 3; R. Aarthie (2291) 4 bt Y. Pratibha (2069) 2; Saimeera Ravi (2162) bt Anupama Gokhale (2249) 4; Sangeetha M. R. (2009) lost to Pallavi Shah (2164) 3; Saheli Dhar-Barua (2224) 2 lost to S. Meenakshi (2248) 5.5; Bhagyashree Thipsay (2241) 3 drew with Nisha Mohota (2257) 3.5.

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