The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Negi, Satyapragyan make GM norms

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Monday, Jan 23, 2006

Sport

Sport - Chess

Negi, Satyapragyan make GM norms

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: Parimarjan Negi's incredible run continues. Facing a must-win situation for a second Grandmaster-norm, the 12-year-old pulled off a dramatic victory with black pieces over S. Kidambi and overshadowed the crowning of Alexei Fedorov as the champion of the 4th Parsvnath International Open chess tournament at the Bapu Samaj Sewa Kendra here on Sunday.

Significant win

Winning with black pieces against an organised player like Kidambi, a long-time friend and practice partner of K. Sasikiran, is considered a tough ask even by many players, including National champion Surya Shekhar Ganguly.

That is why Negi's 55-move victory was more significant.

Once Negi saw the opportunity to seize the initiative on the 19th move, he did not give Kidambi a chance to recover.

Negi's timely triumph doubled India's joy since S. Satyapragyan had made the norm earlier in the day after a friendly draw with Surya Shekhar Ganguly. Saptarshi Roy also took a short draw with M. R. Venkatesh to finish as the strongest Indian in the competition, but missed his Grandmaster norm because he did not play the stipulated number of GMs.

There were seven others, including five Indians, who made their International Master norms, while 12-year-old Padmini Rout claimed her maiden Woman International Master norm from her first GM-tournament appearance. Belarus GM Federov took a short draw with Kazakh Pavel Kotsur to reach nine points and collected the top prize of Rs. 1,75,000. Kotsur, Ziaur Rehman and Saptarshi Roy tied for the second spot at eight points received Rs.70,000 each.

Interestingly, Dibyendu Barua was the best performer among the Indian GMs. He was placed eighth after being tied for the sixth spot with seven others who received Rs. 12,250 each.

The results (Indians unless stated): 10th round: Alexei Fedorov (Isr) (9) drew with Pavel Kostur (Kaz) (8); M. R. Venkatesh (8) drew with Saptarshi Roy (8); Ziaur Rehman (Ban) (8) bt R. Zhumabaev (Kaz) (7); Sriram Jha (7.5) drew with Sandipan Chanda (7.5); S. Satyapragyan (7.5) drew with Surya Shekhar Ganguly (7.5); Vikramaditya Kamble (7) drew with Konstantin Chernysov (Rus) (7); Marat Dzhumaev (Uzb) (7.5) bt P. Konguvel (6.5); S. Kidambi (6.5) lost to Parimarjan Negi (7.5); R. B. Ramesh (7.5) bt Diwakar Prasad Singh (6.5); S. Vijayalakshmi (7) drew with O. T. Anil Kumar (7); R. Balasubramanium (7) drew with Abdullah Al-Rakib (Ban) (7); Vishal Sareen (6.5) lost to Dibyendu Barua (7.5); Abhijeet Gupta (7) drew with Arjun Tiwari (7); Alexander Raetsky (Rus) (7) drew with Arvinder Preet Singh (7); D. Harika (7) drew with R. R. Laxman (7); Swati Ghate (6.5) lost to K. Ratnakaran (7.5); Enamul Hossain (Ban) (7) bt Somak Palit (6); Niaz Murshed (Ban) (7) bt Nasir Ahmed (Ban) (6); Anuar Ismagambetov (Kaz) (7) bt Rishipal Singh (6); Himanshu Sharma (6.5) drew with V. Koshy (6.5); Nassir Wajih (7) bt Arghyadip Das (6); Suvrajit Saha (6.5) drew with T. Purushothaman (6.5); Taibur Rahman (Ban) (6) lost to Deep Sengupta (7); M. S. Thej Kumar (7) bt M. R. Lalith Babu (6); Soumitra Majumdar (6) lost to Roktim Bandopadhyay (7); Prasenjit Dutta (6) lost to N. Sanjay (7); G. N. Gopal (7) bt V. Somesh (6).

Final standings: 1. Federov (9), 2-4. Kotsur, Rehman and Roy (8 each), 5-13. Venkatesh, Satyapragyan, Negi, Barua, Dzhumaev, Chanda, Jha, Ratnakaran and Ramesh (7.5 each).

The norm-makers: Grandmaster-norms (2): Parimarjan Negi and S. Satyapragyan (10-game norms).

International Master-norms (7): Saptarshi Roy (12-game norm), Arjun Tiwari, Vikramaditya Kamble, R. Zhumabaev, Mesgen Amanov, Himanshu Sharma (10-game norms) and Diwakar Prasad Singh (9-game norms).

Woman International Master (1): Padmini Rout (10-game norm).

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