The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Kunte loses, five on top

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Nov 17, 2004

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Sport - Chess

Kunte loses, five on top

By Our Sports Reporter

KOLKATA, NOV. 16. Overnight leader, Abhijit Kunte, slipped at the penultimate hurdle as he lost to Surya Sekhar Ganguly in the 10th round of the International Open here at Gorky Sadan on Tuesday. Ganguly, playing white, made excellent use of his minor pieces to outwit Kunte in a thrilling ending after 62nd moves.

The win helped Ganguly join Kunte and three others on top with seven points.

With draws in the second and third boards, Aleksej Aleksandrov of Belarus, Ni Hua of China took their scores to seven, while Maghami, who beat Dibyendu Barua on the fourth board, also booked a place among the leaders.

Aleksandrov drew against the Tejas Bakre in a long game which arose from the Nimzo Indian defence while Ukrainian Oleg Romanishin drew in 24 moves against Hua in a Slav defence.

Barua went down after a blunder from a comfortable position in a French defence.

The final round pairings has Kunte and Ganguly with black pieces against Vietnam's Dao Thien Hai, and Hua respectively while Maghami takes on Aleksandrov.

A win will help Kunte to the title as he has the best progressive score among all.

There was some cheer on the Indian front as Saptarshi Roy earned his first International Master norm beating R.R. Laxman in a sharp game which arose from the Sicilian defence.

The results (tenth round, Indians unless specified): Surya Sekhar Ganguly 7 bt Abhijit Kunte 7; Aleksej Aleksandrov (Blr) 7 drew with Tejas Bakre 6.5; Oleg Romanishin (Ukr) 6.5 drew with Ni Hua (Chn) 7; Ehsan Ghaem Maghami (Iri) 7 bt Dibyendu Barua 6; Ziaur Rahmanur (Ban) 6 drew with Niaz Murshed (Ban) 6.5; Enamul Hossain (Ban) 5.5 lost to Dao Thien Hai (Vie) 6.5; Abdulla Al-Rakib (Ban) 5.5 lost to Reefat Bin-Sattar (Ban) 6.5; Dinesh Sharma 5.5 drew with Nguyen Anh Dung (Vie) 5.5; Sandipan Chanda 6 bt R. Balasubramaniun 5; K. Visweswaran 5 lost to Alexander Fominyh (Rus) 6; Timur Gareev (Uzb) 5.5 drew with Neelotpal Das 5.5; Saptarshi Roy 6 bt R. R. Laxman 4.5; Javed Mohammad (Ban) 5.5 bt Arindam Mukherjee 4.5; Nisha Mohota 5.5 bt Devraj Chatterjee (Ban) 4.5; Devaki V. Prasad 4.5 drew with Rahul Sangma 4.5; Rahul Shetty 4.5 drew with Abu Sufian Sakil (Ban) 4.5; Aminul Islam 4 lost to Vinoth Kumar 5; Somak Palit 4.5 bt Soumya Thakurta 3.5; Arman Monir (Ban) 3.5 lost to Abhishek Das 4.5; Mahatabuddin Ahmed 4.5 bt Abhratanu Dutta 3.5; Neeraj Mishra 4 bt Sandipan Chatterjee 3; Shayesteh Ghader Pour 3 drew with Satyajit Kundu 3; Bitan Banerjee 2 bt Souvik Chakraborty 2.

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