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Praveen humbles Humpy

By Rakesh Rao

C. Praveen Kumar making a move against WGM Koneru Humpy in the second round of Parsvanath International Open chess championship in New Delhi on Friday. — Photo: R.V. Moorthy

NEW DELHI OCT. 3. A shocking loss followed by a narrow victory, Koneru Humpy had her worst day at work in the last couple of months. Youngster C. Praveen Kumar pulled off the biggest upset of the Parsvnath International chess tournament before Delhi boy Himanshu Kumar raised visions of doubling Humpy's trouble at the Bapu Samaj Seva Kendra here on Friday.

Besides Humpy, several other Grandmasters also failed to gain maximum from their lesser-rated rivals on what proved to be the `day of the underdogs.' As a result, only 14 players shared the lead with three points after as many rounds.

Woman Grandmaster Aarthie Ramaswamy proved equal to top seed Moldova's Dmitry Svetushkin. Similarly, Scotland's Jonathan Rowson, Abhijit Kunte, Surya Sekhar Ganguly, Uzbek Saidali Iuldashev and Russian Alexander Fominyh had to remain content with draws just like the sixth seeded Uzbek International Master Tahir Vakhidov.

But the biggest result of the day was Praveen's conquest of Humpy. In what looked like a fairly good position after the opening lines of Benoni, Humpy, perhaps, paid the penalty for trying too hard for a win. In trying for a breakthrough, she allowed Praveen to wreak havoc with his knight on her kingside.

Having gained a couple of pawns, Praveen grew in confidence and played even better. Humpy, growing in desperation, gave up her rook to prevent an immediate attack on her king while nursing hopes of advancing her queen-pawn for maximum result. But Praveen was quick to attack Humpy's king. When faced with the threat of a checkmate after the 50th move, Humpy resigned.

As though the defeat was not awkward enough for Humpy, Himanshu gave no respite to the girl in form. In this Nimzo game, Himanshu offered Humpy a rook for a minor piece and gradually looked better placed. But Humpy's vast experience and Himanshu inability to find the right continuation soon combined to produce the verdict. Himanshu first missed the winning line and then a possible draw. Surely, Humpy would not have liked to win this way but it was surely better than dropping half-a-point or more.

Eight-year-old Sahaj Grover, the hero of the first day, came up with another startling result when he drew with Vedant Goswami in the second round. Sahaj, however, ended up losing his third round match to K. Gunasekharan, the man who held Fominyh in the morning.

The results:

Third round: Aarthie Ramaswamy (2.5) drew with Dmitry Svetushkin (Mol) (2.5); P. Hari Krishna (3) bt Gurpreet Pal Singh (2); Akshay Raj Kore (2.5) drew with Jonathan Rowson (Sco) (2.5); Abhijit Kunte (2.5) drew with Atanu Lahiri (2.5); G. B. Joshi (2.5) drew with Surya Sekhar Ganguly (2.5); Tahir Vakhidov (Uzb) (2.5) drew with Somak Palit (2.5); P. D. S. Girinath (2.5) drew with Saidali Iuldashev (Uzb) (2.5); Rishi Pal Singh (2) lost to Sergie Ovestivitij (Ukr) (3); Marat Dzhumaev (Uzb) (3) bt M. B. Muralidharan (2); R. B. Ramesh (3) bt O. T. Anil Kumar (2); Sayantan Dutta (2.5) drew with Sriram Jha (2.5); Lanka Ravi (2.5) drew with Rafiq Khan (2.5); Arghyadip Das (2.5) drew with S. Kidambi (2.5); Neelotpal Das (2) lost to Abhijeet Gupta (3); Valay Parikh (2) lost to Niaz Murshed (Ban) (3); Saifudeen (Ban) (3) bt S. Satyapragyan (2); Jayant Gokhale (2.5) drew with N. Sudhakar Babu (2.5); Suvrajit Saha (2.5) drew with Ram Prakash (2.5); C. S. Gokhale (2.5) drew with Vikas Sharma

(2.5); D. Sai Srinivas (2) lost to Prathamesh Mokal (3); Rahul Shetty (3) bt Devraj Chatterjee (2); Vishal Sareen (3) bt D. S. Negi (2); C. Praveen Kumar (2) lost to V. Saravanan (3); Poobesh Anand (2.5) drew with Mithilesh Srivastava (2.5); Mohammad Javed (2) lost to Neeraj Mishra (3); R. Balasubramanium (2.5) drew with Weerawardhanan (Sri) (2.5); G. N. Abhay (2) lost to Anup Deshmukh (3); Alexander Fominyh (2.5) bt Zameer Ahmad Khan (1.5); Jitendra Kumar Choudhary (1.5) lost to P. Konguvel (2.5); G. Rohit (1.5) lost to Abhishek Das (2.5).

Second round: Svetushkin bt Ravi Kumar; C. Natarajan lost to Hari Krishna; Rowson bt Nikhilesh Kumar; Amithpal Singh lost to Kunte; Ganguly bt Diwakar Prasad Singh; Santosh Kumar Sinha lost to Vakhidov; Iuldashev bt L. Imocha; K. Gunasekharan drew with Fominyh; Ovestivitij bt Shashikant Kutwal; Abdul Malek lost to Dhzumaev; Humpy lost to Praveen Kumar; Amit Kumar Medda lost to Ramesh; Sriram Jha bt Ashok Alexander; A. L. Kasi lost to Lanka Ravi; S. Kidambi bt Suresh Kumar; Tania Sachdev lost to Neelotpal Das; Niaz Murshed bt Anupama Gokhale; Ram Prakash bt Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury; Satyapragyan bt V. S. Negi; Vikas Sharma bt M. R. Venkatesh; Babu bt K. Ramu; Arman Monir lost to Suvrajit Saha; T. S. Ravi lost to Mohammad Javed; T. R. Shanmuganathan lost to Chandrashekhar Gokhale; Mokal bt Naveen Jain; N. Jyotilal lost to Rahul Shetty; Zakir Sultana lost to Vishal Sareen; Soumitra Mujumdar lost to Poobesh Anand; Konguvel drew with Saimeera Ravi.

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