The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Nisipeanu in sole lead

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Sep 12, 2004

Sport

Sport - Chess

Nisipeanu in sole lead

By P. K. Ajith Kumar

PUNE, SEPT. 11. He says he's having great fun. He could very well walk with a big prize too on Sunday afternoon.

The World No. 20 Liviu-Deiter Nisipeanu of Romania goes into the final round of the Category 16 super Grandmaster tournament with half-a-point lead, after outwitting Israel's Emil Stutovsky in an intriguing eighth round battle at Le Royale Residency Club here on Saturday.

The top seed is on 5.5 points, and challenging him for the title is the FIDE World champion from Uzbekistan, Rusatm Kasimdzhanov, who has five after being held to a draw by India's Pendyala Harikrishna, who is placed third with 4.5 points.

In the day's other games, local lad Abhijit Kunte posted his first win, dashing compatriot Sandipan Chanda's title hopes.In the two crucial games on the final day, Nisipeanu takes on Kunte, while Kasimdzhanov meets Sutovsky.

Tania Sachdev and Eesha Karvade have made the required number of points for their WGM norms, while Arghyadip Das and Kruttika Nadig did the same for the IM and IWM norms respectively. But since they haven't met the required number of foreign players, their norms cannot be confirmed.

The AICF secretary and FIDE vice president P.T. Ummer Koya, however, said that their applications would be forwarded to FIDE for consideration. The norms could have been completed otherwise, if the organisers could get 20 foreign players here, and many players are upset about it.

The results (Indians unless stated): Category 16 (eighth round): Alexander Beliavsky (Slo) 4 drew with Surya Shekhar Ganguly 3.5; Pendyala Harikrishna 4.5 drew with Rustam Kasimdzhanov (Uzb) 5; Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu (Rom) 5.5 bt Emil Sutovsky (Isr) 3.5; Abhijit Kunte 3 bt Sandipan Chanda 4; Krishnan Sasikiran 3 drew with Zurab Azmaiparashvili (Geo) 4.

International Open (ninth round): Marat Dzhumaev (Uzb) 6.5 drew with Evgeny Vladimirov (Kaz) 6.5; Alexander Fominyh (Rus) 6.5 drew with Saidali Iuldachev (Uzb) 6.5; Sundarrajan Kidambi 6.5 bt Alexei Barsov (Uzb)5.5; M.R. Venkatesh 5.5 lost to Praveen Thipsay 6.5; Arghyadip Das 6.5 bt Deepan Chakravarthy 5.5; Ruslan Scherbakov (Rus) 6 bt Rahul Shetty 5; S. Satyapragyan 5.5 drew with Tahir Vakhidov (Uzb) 5.5; Tejas Bakre 6 bt Saptarshi Roy 5; Atanu Lahiri 5.5 drew with R.B. Ramesh 5.5; Sharad Tilak 6 bt Shukhrat Safin (Uzb) 5; Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury 6 bt S. Poobesh Anand 5; Dibyendu Barua 5.5 bt Roktim Bandyopadhyay 4.5; Lanka Ravi 5.5 bt Akshayraj Kore 4.5; S. Vijayalakshimi 5 drew with D. Harika 5.

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

Sport