Sport - Chess   

Humpy, Barua shocked; Ganguly takes lead

By P.K. Ajith Kumar

KOZHIKODE DEC. 9. You could almost hear a collective sigh of relief. That came from 23 men at the Chess India Complex on a humid Tuesday afternoon.

The lone woman at the 41st National men's `A' championship, Koneru Humpy, had been humbled at last and removed from the sole lead position after the ninth round. She was beaten by a man they call the Draw Master, as Saptarshi Roy Choudhury scored his most memorable win yet in his young career.

The player who probably looks for a draw even in an Australia-Bangladesh Test already has two Grandmasters as his victims in this tournament — he had shocked top seed and Humpy's Statemate from Andhra, Pendyala Harikrishna in the opening round.

The Vijayawada lass though wasn't the only Grandmaster to bite the dust, as former champion Dibyendu Barua was beaten by Vishal Sareen, the Delhi player who also likes to report the game sometimes. Today though he chose to make, rather than write, news.

Surya Shekhar Ganguly, who has looked the steadiest of them all so far, has swapped slots with Humpy to move into the sole lead. The third seed has seven points, following his victory against Vikramjit Singh.

Humpy, in the sole second position, has 6.5 points. R.B. Ramesh, who drew with Sandipan Chanda, and Saptarshi are in the third position with six each.

Humpy began with Modern Defence against Saptarshi and gave the impression that she wanted to go out of the book. She didn't handle the irregular opening properly and gave an early advantage in space to White.

Almost out of habit, Saptrashi proposed a draw on the 13th move, which was spurned by Humpy. She was to regret that of course. White built up a powerful attack on the king-side, but not without some help from her rival.

The results (ninth round): Sunderrajan Kidambi 4.5 drew with Pendyala Harikrishna 5; Surya Shekhar Ganguly 7 bt Vikramjit Singh 3; R.B. Ramesh 6 drew with Sandipan Chanda 5; Vishal Sareen 4.5 bt Dibyendu Barua 4.5; M.R. Venkatesh 5 drew with Abhijit Kunte 5.5; M. Srinivasa Rao 1.5 lost to Roktim Bandhopadhyay 3; T.S. Ravi 3.5 lost to Prathamesh Mokal 5; S. Satyapragyan 4.5 lost to Sriram Jha 3.5; Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury 6 bt Koneru Humpy 6.5; Neelotpal Das 5.5 bt V. Hariharan 2; Tejas Bakre 5 bt Suvrajit Saha 4.5; Praveen Thipsay 5 bt Argyadip Das 2.5.

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