The Hindu : Neeraj joins Ramesh in lead

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Sep 24, 2003

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Sport - Chess

Neeraj joins Ramesh in lead

By Rakesh Rao

LUCKNOW SEPT. 23. Without doubt, the best of Neeraj Kumar Mishra and twice National `B' champion Varugeese Koshy, as players, is firmly behind them. But the way the two veteran International Masters, having turned to coaching in a big way, are playing these days in the Piloo Mody international rating chess tournament, they seem to have partially regained the drive and exuberance of youth.

Mishra posted two tactical victories to join overnight leader R. B. Ramesh at the top with seven points. Koshy, after gaining decisively from the oversights by his opponents in the previous two rounds drew with Ramesh in the eighth round at the Moti Mahal hall here on Tuesday. The 45-year-old officer of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation is sharing the second spot with Gurpreet Pal Singh, R. Balasubramanium and Joydev Saha with 6.5 points each.

In the morning, Neeraj had a tough opening phase against 14-year-old Abhijit Gupta but came back strongly and won after sacrificing a rook for knight. Riding on this attacking victory, Neeraj adopted similar tactics against Vivek Shukla in the Cheliabinsk variation of Slav and capitalised on a dubious pawn sacrifice by his rival. This was Shukla's first loss.

Earlier, Ramesh had to force a draw through perpetual checks against Shukla in the seventh round. Having drawn with white pieces, Ramesh was more circumspect with black against Koshy in the evening. Though Ramesh did turn down a draw-offer on the 12th move of their English Opening game, he made a similar offer off the very next move and Koshy promptly accepted.

In an interesting result, Tejaswini Sagar, a three-and-a-half year old from Karjat (Maharashtra), the youngest in the field of 178, scored a four-move victory over Anushruti to reach two points. It is indeed incredible that at such a tender age, this student of Pethe English School knew the correct sequence leading to a checkmate.

The results: Eighth round: Varugeese Koshy (6.5) drew with R. B. Ramesh (7); Neeraj Kumar Mishra (7) bt Vivek Shukla (6); Gurpreet Pal Singh (6.5) bt Anup Deshmukh (5.5); Swati Mohota (5.5) lost to R. Balasubramanium (6.5); Yogesh Gore (5.5) lost to Joydev Saha (6.5); N. Sudhakar Babu (5) lost to Abhijit Gupta (6); Prathamesh Mokal (5) lost to Diwakar Prasad Singh (6); T. S. Ravi (6) bt Amardeep Bartakke (5); Arindam Mukherjee (5.5) drew with Himanshu Sharma (5.5); Kanti Lal Dave (5) lost to Poobesh Anand (6); Soumya Ranjan Mishra (5.5) drew with P. Konguvel (5.5); Nisha Mohota (6) bt P. D. S. Girinath (5); Rajkamal Singh (5.5) drew with Valay Parikh (5.5); Dilip Das (4.5) lost to S. Satyapragyan (5.5); Rakesh Ranjan (4.5) lost to Dinesh Sharma (5.5); K. Ramu (4.5) lost to R. Preetham Sharma (5.5); G. Balaji (5) drew with Naveen S. Hegde (5); Niladri S. Bhattacharaya (4.5) lost to S. K. Rathore (5.5); Debaditya Sinha Biswas (4.5) lost to Ravi Kumar (5.5); Pradip Ghosh (4.5) lost to Mithilesh Srivastava (5.5); K. Nikhilesh Kumar (4.5) lost to Ashish P. Thatte (5.5); Junaid Ahmad (5) drew with Devendra Bajpai (5); Joydeep Dutta (4.5) lost to Anurag Jaiswal (4.5); Swaraj Palit (5.5) bt Sajal Basak (4.5); R. R. Laxman (5) bt Suman Basu (4); Vedant Goswami (4.5) drew with Kirti Singh (4.5); Rishi Pal Singh (5) bt Mukesh Mandloi (4); Sanjib Ghosh (4.5) drew with Amitpal Singh (4.5); B. Adithya (4.5) drew with Pranjal Das (4.5); Rohan Shandilya (4) lost to Zameer Ahmad Khan (5).

Seventh round: Ramesh drew with Vivek Shukla; Abhijit lost to Neeraj Mishra; Soumya Ranjan Mishra lost to Koshy; Joydev Saha drew with Gurpreet; Girinath drew with Mokal; T. S. Ravi drew with Arindam Mukherjee; Deshmukh bt Joydeep Dutta; Balasubramanium bt Palit; Swati Mohota bt Balaji; Gore bt Ramu; Satyapragyan drew with Rajkamal Singh; Amitpal Singh lost to Babu; Dinesh Sharma drew with Nikhilesh Kumar; Preetham Sharma drew with Rakesh Ranjan; Himanshu Sharma bt Harkamal; Poobesh Anand bt Mukesh Mondloi; Kanti Lal Dave bt Laxman; Konguvel bt Rupankar Nath; Pranjal Das lost to Nisha Mohota; Valay Parikh bt B. Adithya; Bartakke bt Atul Tripathi; Diwakar Prasad Singh bt E. V. Ravi; Naveen Hegde drew with Pradip Ghosh; Sajal Basak drew with Vedant Goswami; S. K. Rathore bt Raghuram Balaji; Ravi Kumar bt S. K. Khasim; D. Ravishankar lost to Juanaid Ahmad; Suman Basu bt D. S. Negi; Devendra Bajpai bt Tamal Chakraborty; Adabala Tejdeep lost to Debaditya Sinha Biswas.

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