The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Ganguly in sole lead

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

Sport

Sport - Chess

Ganguly in sole lead

By P. K. Ajith Kumar

VISAKHAPATNAM, DEC. 11. Surya Shekar Ganguly had an easy outing against Abhijeet Gupta in the 42nd National `A' chess championship here on Saturday.

The defending champion is now in the sole lead after the 10th round of the Championship at the Waltair Club. With nine rounds remaining, he has 7.5 points, half-a-point ahead of Sandipan Chanda, who was held to a draw by Tejas Bakre.

On 6.5 points are Neelotpal Das and the second seed Abhijit Kunte, who posted his third straight win, when he outwitted P. Konguvel in a minor-piece ending. Koneru Humpy also scored a significant win today, against Sundarrajan Kidambi, who first had a chance to move into a superior position and then another to equalise.

Poor Abhijeet lasted for just 26 moves in his Berlin game against Ganguly, who had prepared this particular variation for the recent Olympiad in Spain along with his teammates and coach. Black was losing a piece when he resigned, but he'd lost the game long before.

Humpy won in 39 moves from the white side of a Slav Defence, making good use of her bishop pair.

The results (10th round):

Surya Shekhar Ganguly 7.5 bt Abhijeet Gupta 3; Neelotpal Das 6.5 drew with Suvrajit Saha 4.5; Sandipan Chanda 7 drew with Tejas Bakre 5.5; M.R. Venkatesh 5.5 bt Sriram Jha 2.5; Koneru Humpy 5.5 bt Sundarrajan Kidambi 5.5; Abhijit Kunte 6.5 bt P. Konguvel 5; Saptarshi Roy Choudhury 5.5 drew with Dibyendu Barua 4.5; Dronavalli Harika 2.5 drew with Roktim Bandyopadhyay 4.5; Prathamesh Mokal 2.5 lost to Deepan Chakravarthy 5; Rahul Shetty 1 bye.

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