Sport - Chess   

Gurpreet joins Ramesh, Neeraj in lead

By Rakesh Rao

LUCKNOW SEPT. 24. A timely rearguard action by young International Master Poobesh Anand denied favourite R. B. Ramesh what looked like a possible victory in the crucial 10th and penultimate round and led to a three-way tie for the lead in the Piloo Mody international rating chess tournament here on Wednesday.

The splitting of point on the top board forced Ramesh to share the lead with overnight joint leader Neeraj Mishra and Gurpreet Pal Singh at eight points. Half a point behind the leaders are Poobesh, R. Balasubramanium, Varugeese Koshy, Abhijit Gupta, Dinesh Sharma and Anup Deshmukh.

In the event of a tie following Friday's final round, the prize-money will be shared. With such a possibility looming large, some very tough battles are likely to fought on the leading boards.

Ramesh's fourth successive draw, after six straight victories, obviously left him a bit frustrated. He looked better placed against Poobesh in the Queen's Gambit game, lasting 44 moves. After a very unclear middle game, Ramesh injected some life into the proceedings with some precise play on the kingside. With both players under time-pressure, Ramesh, perhaps, missed a chance to re-emerge as the sole leader.

Neeraj, too, tried in vain to force a win against R. Balasubramanium on the second board but then gave up in an ending involving a bishop each and pawns. In the morning, Neeraj had a similar result against Ramesh. After this game, Neeraj was left to rue a possible chance to gain a decisive advantage following the post-match analysis.

With a spate of draws in the two rounds today, Gurpreet caught up with the leaders with a fine victory over Diwakar Prasad Singh, the man who humbled WGM Nisha Mohota in the morning.

The results: (Tenth round): Poobesh S. Anand (7.5) drew with R. B. Ramesh (8); Neeraj Mishra (8) drew with R. Balasubramamium (7.5); Varugeese Koshy (7.5) drew with Abhijit Gupta (7.5); Gurpreet Pal Singh (8) bt Diwakar Prasad Singh (7); Dinesh Sharma (7.5) bt Joydev Saha (6.5); P. Konguvel (7) drew with R. Preetham Sharma (7); Arindam Mukherjee (6.5) lost to Anup Deshmukh (7.5); S. K. Rathore (7) drew with Himanshu Sharma (7); Yogesh Gore (6) lost to N. Sudhakar Babu (7); Prathamesh Mokal (6.5) drew with Vivek Shukla (6.5); Rishi Pal Singh (6.5) drew with T. S. Ravi (6.5); R. R. Laxman (6.5) drew with P. D. S. Girinath (6.5); Nisha Mohota (7) bt Swati Mohota (6); G. Balaji (6.5) drew with Ashish P. Thatte (6.5); Valay Parikh (7) bt Amardeep Bartakke (6); K. Ramu (6) drew with S. Satyapragyan (6); Mithilesh Srivastava (5.5) lost to Vedant Goswami (6.5); Ravi Kumar (6.5) bt Anurag Jaiswal (5.5); Rajkamal Singh (6) drew with D. Ravishankar (6); Amitpal Singh (6) drew with Mohammad Tariq Umar Khan (6); Nimchand Chouhan (5.5) lost to Pranjal Das (6.5); K. Nikhilesh Kumar (6) drew with C. V. Rajalakshmi (6); Niladri Bhattacharya (6) drew with Soumya Ranjan Mishra (6); Swaraj Palit (6) drew with Rupankar Nath (6); Sajal Basak (6) drew with Dilip Das (6); D. S. Negi (5.5) drew with Sankalp Modwal (5.5); Pradip Ghosh (5.5) drew with Junaid Ahmad (5.5); Hemant Sharma (5) lost to Kanti Lal Dave (6); Mukesh Mondloi (6) bt Devendra Bajpai (5); Rohan Shandilya (5) lost to Himanshu Kumar (6).

Ninth round: Ramesh drew with Neeraj Mishra; Joydev Saha drew with Koshy; Balasubramanium drew with Gurpreet Pal; Abhijit Gupta bt T. S. Ravi; Vivek Shukla lost to Poobesh; Diwakar Prasad Singh bt Nisha; Satyapragyan lost to S. K. Rathore; Dinesh Sharma bt Ravi Kumar; Preetham Sharma bt Soumya Ranjan Mishra; Deshmukh bt Swaraj Palit; Himanshu Sharma bt Mithilesh Srivastava; Konguvel bt Rajkamal Singh; Valay Parikh drew with Swati Mohota; Ashish Thatte drew with Gore; Jaiswal lost to Arindam Mukherjee; Babu bt Dave; Devendra Bajpai lost to Mokal; Naveen Hegde lost to Laxman; Zameer Ahmad Khan lost to Balaji; Girinath bt Vikrant Chole; Bartakke bt Harkamal Singh; Junaid Ahmad lost to Rishi Pal; Rupankar Nath drew with Pradip Ghosh; Vedant Goswami bt Tamal Chakraborty; Ravishankar bt S. K. Khasim; Amitpal Singh bt Debaditya Sinha Biswas; Himanshu Kumar drew with D. S. Negi; Pranjal Das bt Sanjib Ghosh; Kirti Singh lost to Nikhilesh Kumar; Suman Basu drew with Joydeep Dutta.

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