The Hindu : Smirnov, Fominyh share lead

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jan 15, 2004

Sport

Sport - Chess

Smirnov, Fominyh share lead

By Rakesh Rao

MUMBAI, JAN. 14. The fifth round of the Commonwealth chess championship produced predictable verdicts with uncommon regularity. On the top three boards, overnight leader P. Hari Krishna, National champion Surya Shekhar Ganguly and D. V. Prasad surrendered rather tamely to their higher rated overseas challengers. Indians did look like coming out stronger in two other matches but disappointed in the end.

Newsmaker R.R. Laxman raised visions of upstaging British GM Stuart Conquest but finally settled for a draw. In-form Vishal Sareen failed to capitalise on a promising position and blundered away the match to Uzbek GM Marat Dzhumaev.

At the end of the day, Russians Pavel Smirnov and Alexander Fominyh shared the lead with 4.5 points each. K. Sasikiran and Abhijit Kunte, seeded two and 12, led the home challenge with four points.

Chandrashekhar Gokhale happily drew with Uzbek IM Tahir Vakhidov in just six moves and before former National champion P. Konguvel and Koneru Humpy produced a similar result after a long battle.

In the midst of predictable results, the surprise defeat of Woman GM S. Vijayalakshmi at the hands of veteran IM Sharad Tilak stood out.

The results (Indians unless stated): Fifth round: Pavel Smirnov (Rus) (4.5) bt P. Hari Krishna (3.5); Alexander Fominyh (Rus) (4.5) bt Surya Shekhar Ganguly (3); Nigel Short (Eng) (4) bt D.V. Prasad (3); K. Sasikiran (4) bt Himanshu Sharma (3); Tahir Vakhidov (Uzb) (3.5) drew with Chandrashekhar Gokhale (3.5); Rahul Shetty (3) lost to Abhijit Kunte (4); Vishal Sareen (3) lost to Marat Dzhumaev (Uzb) (4); P. Konguvel (3.5) drew with Koneru Humpy (3.5); Pravin Thipsay (4) bt Somak Palit (3); S. Poobesh Anand (3) lost to Sergey Iskusnyh (Rus) (4); Anup Deshmukh (3) lost to Tejas Bakre (4); S. Vijayalakshmi (3) lost to Sharad Tilak (4); N. Sudhakar Babu (3.5) drew with S. Kidambi (3.5); Niaz Murshed (Ban) (4) bt Soumya Ranjan Mishra (3); R. R. Laxman (3.5) drew with Stuart Conquest (Eng) (3.5); Vladimir Feldman (Aus) (2.5) lost to Sandipan Chanda (3.5); R. B. Ramesh (3) drew with Nisha Mohota (3); Lim Yee Weng (Mal) (3) drew with Neelotpal Das (3); Jayant Gokhale (2.5) lost to George Michelakis (RSA) (3.5); G. Balaji (2.5) lost to Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury (3.5); K. Nikhilesh Kumar (2.5) lost to Abhijeet Gupta (3.5); M. R. Venkatesh (2.5) lost to Prathamesh Mokal (3.5); M. K. A. Russell (Sri) (3) drew with Deepan Chakkravarthy (3); Rakesh Ranjan (3) drew with Varugeese Koshy (3); Dinesh Kumar Sharma (3.5) bt Yogesh Gore (2.5); S. Satyapragyan (3.5) bt Bhagyashree Thipsay (2.5); N. Vinuthna (3.5) bt Gurpreet Pal Singh (2.5); T. S. Ravi (3) drew with Sai Meera (3); Deep Sengupta (3.5) bt Vikas Sharma (2.5); Ravi Hegde (3.5) bt K. Priyadarshan (2.5); Y. Pratibha (2.5) drew with Saidali Iuldachev (Uzb) (2.5); Shukhrat Safin (Uzb) (3) bt Anupama Gokhale (2); Lanka Ravi (3) bt S. G. Joshi (2); Sriram Jha (3) bt Yoshodhan Gogte (2); Sai Krishna (2) lost to P. D. S. Girinath (3); Y. Sandeep (2.5) drew with David Gluckman (Eng) (2.5); Dronavalli Harika (3) bt P. Priya (2); Saptarshi Roy (3) bt C. R. G. Krishna (2); Viraf Avari (2) lost to S. Meenakshi (3); Atanu Lahiri (2.5) drew with Yash Agarwal (2.5); Nabeela Farheen (2) lost to K. Visweswaran (3).

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