The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Suvrajit Saha holds Ganguly

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Dec 11, 2004

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Sport - Chess

Suvrajit Saha holds Ganguly

By P.K. Ajith Kumar

VISAKHAPATNAM, DEC. 10. As Surya Shekhar Ganguly stormed out of the Waltair Club's banquet hall on Friday evening, you didn't need to be a Grandmaster to discern that it just wasn't his day.

The defending champion was visibly upset that he couldn't win against fellow-Kolkatan Suvrajit Saha in the ninth round of the 42nd National `A' chess championship. Despite the draw, he still shares the lead with Sandipan Chanda, who'd agreed to a quick draw with Sriram Jha. They have 6.5 points apiece.

Neelotpal Das didn't take too much time either to settle for a draw with Tejas Bakre and maintain his sole second position with six points.

Kunte beats Barua

The day in fact witnessed as many as seven draws, the most notable among them saw P. Konguvel holding Koneru Humpy. Abhijit Kunte, who was lucky against Dibyendu Barua, and debutant Abhijeet Gupta, who inflicted an inevitable defeat on the woefully out-of-sorts Rahul Shetty, were the only winners on the day.

Even as Ganguly was disappointed, Saha looked pretty pleased to take half-a-point off the top seed. Playing on the white side of a Grunfeld Defence, he did well to hold on after playing a pawn down from early on.

Ganguly indeed looked better in the knight-and-pawn ending with his extra pawn, but couldn't find the winning move, under time pressure. Saha's passed pawn ensured him the draw, despite losing his knight for two pawns.

This was his first draw, which he got after 58 moves and many anxious moments, in his last five meetings with his formidable rival.

It was a welcome draw for Konguvel too, as he has a poor personal score against Humpy

The results (ninth round):

Deepan Chakravarthy 4 drew with Saptarshi Roy Choudhury 5; Sundarrajan Kidambi 5.5 drew with M.R. Venkatesh 4.5; Sriram Jha 2.5 drew with Sandipan Chanda 6.5; Tejas Bakre 5 drew with Neelotpal Das 6; Roktim Bandyopadhyay 4 drew with Prathamesh Mokal 2.5; Dibyendu Barua 4 lost to Abhijit Kunte 5.5; P. Konguvel 5 drew with Koneru Humpy 4.5; Suvrajit Saha 4 drew with Surya Shekhar Ganguly 6.5; Abhijeet Gupta 3 bt Rahul Shetty 1; Dronavalli Harika (AP) 2 — bye.

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