Wednesday, Oct 01, 2003
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Chess
By Rakesh Rao
R. Bala Subramaniam (right) who defeated Suvrajit Saha in the eighth round of the Saharanpur International chess tournament on Tuesday. — Photo: R.V. Moorthy
After eight rounds, Humpy remained in the lead with R. Balasubramanium and Himanshu Kumar on seven points. Everything points to the making of an Indian champion in this event, which offers half a million rupees in prize-money. This is also the first time that Indians are heading the field ahead of pre-tournament favourites Moldova's Dmitry Svetushkin, Uzbekistan's Tahir Vakhidov, Russian Alexander Fominyh and another Uzbek GM Saidali Iuldashev, seeded one to four in that order. They are part of a 13-player pack at 6.5 points. What makes fifth-seeded Humpy the best bet for the first prize of Rs. one lakh is her superior progressive score. Since it was decided in the Players' Meeting on Friday that the prize-money would not be shared in the event of a tie, Humpy's progressive score is likely to take her through to the top. Humpy, who became the sole leader after her escape to victory against an unheralded Diwakar Prasad Singh in the afternoon, accepted Vakhidov's draw-offer after nine moves. For the first time in many games, Humpy was seen struggling against Diwakar this morning. But in time-pressure, Diwakar faltered. A poor queen-move by Diwakar settled the issue. He faced the possibility of losing his queen or getting check-mated in two moves. At this stage, Diwakar not only ran out of ideas but also time. R. Balasubramanium, the man who had stunned Fominyh two days back and inflicted a rare defeat on R.B. Ramesh this morning, overpowered Suvrajit Saha to join Humpy. These victories over the current and last year's National `B' champion helped Balasubramanium stake his claim for the big prize on Wednesday. In comparison, Himanshu had an easier way to the top. In the morning, he dispatched lowly Abdul Malek before working his way to victory in the closing seconds against L. Imocha. Fominyh, held by last year's sub-junior champion S. Arun Prasad, scored a comfortable victory over Saifuddin. Iuldashev, after settling for an early draw with IM Neelotpal Das on the top board, was engaged in an equal battle with Poobesh Anand. The two had drawn their previous encounter in the Commonwealth Championship in April. Svetushkin extricated himself from a position where he had a knight less against O.T. Anil Kumar to score a hard-fought victory. The results: Eighth round: Tahir Vakhidov (6.5) drew with Koneru Humpy (7); Saidali Iuldashev (6.5) drew with Poobesh Anand (6.5); P. Konguvel (6.5) drew with Neelotpal Das (6.5); Suvrajit Saha (6) lost to R. Balasubramanium (7); L. Imocha (6) lost to Himanshu Sharma (7); Dmitry Svetushkin (6.5) bt O.T. Anil Kumar (5.5); Saifuddin (5.5) lost to Alexander Fominyh (6.5); S. Arun Prasad (6) drew with Sriram Jha (6); S.K. Rathore (5.5) lost to S. Satyapragyan (6.5); Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury (6) drew with P.D.S. Girinath (6); D. Sai Srinivas (5.5) lost to M.R. Venkatesh (6.5); T.S. Ravi (6) drew with Valay Parikh (6); Somak Palit (6.5) bt Nassir Wajih (5.5); Neeraj Mishra (6.5) bt Arghyadip Das (5.5); Nirmal E.P. (6) drew with K. Ratnakaran (6); G.N. Gopal (6) drew with Anup Deshmukh (6); Varugeese Koshy (6) drew with Shashikant Kutwal (6); Aminul Islam (5.5) lost to Diwakar Prasad Singh (6.5); R.B. Ramesh (6) bt Deoraj Chatterjee (5); B.S. Shivanandan (6) bt Puneet Jaiswal (5); Soumya Ranjan Mishra (5.5) drew with Prathamesh Mokal (5.5); K. Chakravarthi (5) lost to Nisha Mohota (6); Saurabh Kherdekar (6) bt Jitendra Kumar Chaudhari (5); G. Balaji (6) bt Aminul Islam Polash (5); Tanmoy Pattanayak (6) bt Yogesh Gore (5); Dilip Panjwani (5) lost to Rishi Pal Singh (6); Abdul Malek (6) bt Utpal Barua (5); Dhiraj Saxena (5.5) drew with Arjun Tiwari (5.5); Vipal Subhashi (5.5) drew with Hemant Mandhare (5.5). Seventh round: Neelotpal drew with Iuldashev; Humpy bt Diwakar Prasad; Nisha lost to Vakhidov; Fominyh drew with Arun Prasad; Balasubramanium bt R.B. Ramesh; Satyapragyan drew with D. Sai Srinivas; Valay Parikh drew with Saptarshi; Venkatesh drew with Somak Palit; Gore lost to Saha; Mokal lost to Imocha; Girinath drew with T.S. Ravi; Himanshu Sharma bt Abdul Malek; Arghyadip Das drew with Koshy; Poobesh bt Pattanayak; Rishi Pal lost to Konguvel; Kutwal drew with M.B. Muralidharan; Praveen Kumar lost to Svetushkin; Manish Joshi lost to Jha; Babu lost to G.N. Gopal; Nikhilesh Kumar drew with Shivanandan; Wajih bt Sudhir Kumar Sinha; Jyoti Lal lost to Neeraj Mishra; Ratnakaran bt Moti Ram; Deshmukh bt Brijesh Agarwal; Pankaj Joshi lost to Nirmal E.P.; Shandilya lost to Aminul Islam; O.T. Anil Kumar bt K. Ramu; Keshav Shreshtha drew with Kherdekar; Sukhpal Singh Kalsi lost to Saifuddin; Santosh Kumar Sinha lost to Gajendra Chauhan; Saumitra Mujumdar lost to S.K. Rathore.
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