The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Prasad draws with Aleksandrov

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Tuesday, Nov 09, 2004

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Prasad draws with Aleksandrov

By Our Sports Reporter

KOLKATA, NOV. 8. The top seeds — Aleksej Aleksandrov of Belarus and Ni Hua of China — drew with Indian International Masters, Devaki V. Prasad and Rahul Shetty respectively in the opening round of the Alekhine Chess Club organised International Open chess meet at the Gorky Sadan here on Monday.

Aleksandrov was held to a draw by Prasad in 71 moves in a Nimzo Indian Defence, while Hua was could not break out of the perpetual checks by Shetty.

Local Grandmaster Dibyendu Barua and Asia's youngest GM, Timur Gareev of Uzbekistan also had to split points against unheralded opponents.

Barua has held by Jharkhand player Abhishek Das, who succeeded in holding the former in a prolonged struggle in a Sicilian Pelikan defence. Similarly, Gareev fell to the Bangladesh player Devraj Chatterjee and had to sign the truce after 49 moves as the latter opted for an Old Indian defence.

The other Indian Grandmasters, Surya Sekhar Ganguly, Sandipan Chanda, Abhijit Kunte and Tejas Bakre notched up comfortable wins against lesser placed compatriots and collected full points.

The only Woman GM in the meet, Nisha Mohota, held the seasoned Bangladesh GM Ziaur Rahaman to a draw.

The younger players — mostly the wards of Goodricke National Chess Academy — performed creditably with Rahul Sangma, the under-16 National rapid boys' champion, upsetting IM Abdulla Al Rakib of Bangladesh. Sangma's feat was matched by 12-year-old Sandipan Chatterjee who outwitted IM R.R. Laxman in 72 moves.

Satyajit Kundu celebrated his 11th birthday by holding IM Enamul Hossain of Bangladesh to a draw in just 51 moves.

Another young Indian, Soumya Thakurta, held IM Reefat Bin Sattar of Bangladesh to a creditable draw in 35 moves in a French defence.

The meet has a sufficiently big draw with a total of 48 players, including 15 GMs, nine IMs, one WGM and one WIM, making the cut. Six foreign participants, including the Iranians GM Ghaem Maghami and WIM Shayesteh Ghader Pour, missed the first round play owing to transit problems and were awarded half a point before they begin from Tuesday.

The results: round one: Aleksej Aleksandrov (Blr) 0.5 drew with Devaki V. Prasad 0.5; Rahul Shetty 0.5 drew with Ni Hua (Chn) 0.5; Thien Hai Dao (Vie) 1 bt Neeraj Mishra 0; R. Balasubramaniun 0 lost to Anh Dung Nguyen (Vie) 1; Surya Sekhar Ganguly 1 bt Somak Palit 0; Arindam Mukherjee 0 lost to Abhijit Kunte 1; Oleg Romanishin (Ukr) 1 bt Shakil Abu Sufian (Ban) 0; K. Visweswaran 0 lost to Sandipan Chanda 1; Ziaur Rahman (Ban) 0.5 drew with Nisha Mohota 0.5; K. Ramu 0 lost to Alexander Fominyh (Rus) 1; Dibyendu Barua 0.5 drew with Abhishek Das 0.5; Devraj Chatterjee (Ban) 0.5 drew with Gareev Timur (Uzb) 0.5; Tejas Bakre 1 bt Vinoth Kumar 0; Rahul Sangma 1 bt Abdulla Al-Rakib (Ban) 0; Niaz Murshed (Ban) 1 bt Saheli Nath 0; Soumya Thakurta 0.5 drew with Reefat Bin-Sattar (Ban) 0.5; Neelotpal Das 1 bt Souvik Chakraborty 0; Bitan Banerjee 0 lost to Saptarshi Roy 1; R.R. Laxman 0 lost to Sandipan Chatterjee 1; Satyajit Kundu 0.5 drew with Enamul Hossain (Ban) 0.5, Dinesh Kumar Sharma 1 bt Abhratanu Dutta 0.

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