The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Laxman emerges sole leader

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jul 19, 2004

Sport

Sport - Chess

Laxman emerges sole leader

By Arvind Aaron

Chennai. July 18. National lightning champion Rajaram Laxman played enterprisingly to win both his games on Sunday to storm into sole lead at the end of the fifth round in the 4th Adyar Times FIDE-rated Open chess tournament being played here.

Laxman has won all his five games played so far to lead the tournament by a slender half a point margin with five points. International Master M.R. Venkatesh, Ram S. Krishnan and M.B. Muralidharan of Kerala are closely behind him in second place with 4.5 points.

In a long marathon encounter, Laxman downed O.T. Anil Kumar with the white pieces from a modern defence after letting black equalise from the opening. Anil Kumar fell short of time and lost two pawns in the process of racing his moves. Laxman won on time although he had a winning position on the board at that time.

The results:

Fifth round: R.R.Laxman 5 bt O.T. Anil Kumar 4, M.V inoth Kumar 3.5 lost to M.R. Venkatesh 4.5, V. Hari Balu 4 drew with Poobesh Anand 4, N. Sudhakar Babu 4 drew with K.V. Shantharam 4, M.B. Muralidharan 4.5 bt P. Maheswaran 3.5, R. Siddarth 4 drew with V. Raghavendra 4, K. Narayanan 3.5 lost to Ram S. Krishnan 4.5, B. Adhiban 3 lost to Joerg Schwalfenberg 4, V. Kameswaran 3 lost to C. Praveen Kumar 4, V. Hariharan 3.5 drew with R. Muralidharan 3.5, S.R. Radha 3.5 drew with Sai Meera Ravi 3.5, S. Raghuraman 3 lost to S.P. Sethuraman 4, Pon N. Kirthikha 3 lost to M. Kunal 4, S. Sathyanarayanan 3 lost to K. Gopalakrishnan 4, Anish Das Sarma 3.5 drew with P. Siva Sankari 3.5, R. Rajesh 3.5 drew with R. Ashwath 3.5, P.V.S. Sekhar 3 lost to T.U. Navin Kanna 4, R. Uttam Sharma 4 bt H. Sowmya 3, H. Nilavoli 3.5 bt Deepak Kumar Payang 3, R. Ramnath Bhuvanesh 2.5 lost to G. Dinesh Kumar 3.5.

Fourth round: C. Praveen Kumar lost to R.R. Laxman, Ram S. Krishnan drew with Sudhakar Babu, Joerg Schwalfenberg lost to O.T. Anil Kumar, K.V. Shantharam drew with M.B. Muralidharan, S.P. Sethuraman lost to R. Siddarth, M.R. Venkatesh bt R. Arun Karthik, Poobesh Anand bt H. Nilavoli, P. Siva Sankari drew with V. Hariharan, G. Dinesh Kumar lost to K. Narayanan, C. Siva Kumar lost to M. Vinoth Kumar.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sport