The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Neelotpal Das in joint lead

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Feb 11, 2006

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Sport - Chess

Neelotpal Das in joint lead

Moscow: International Master Neelotpal Das, in hunt of his final Grandmaster norm, outwitted compatriot Himanshu Sharma to emerge as joint leader after the second round of the `A2' group on a productive day for the Indian contingent at the Aeroflot International Open chess tournament here.

Double GM norm holder Parimarjan Negi had to settle for a draw with GM Sergei Iskusnyh of Russia and the young gun inched to 1.5 points to remain on course for his final norm.

Another GM norm aspirant Abhijeet Gupta played a composed game to hold GM Igor Kurnosov of Russia.

Grandmaster Krishnan Sasikiran scored a hard earned victory over GM Hannes Stefansson of Island to open his account in the `A1' — the main group of $175,000 events.

GM Sandipan Chanda was also creditable in holding top seed and twice Junior World champion Shakhriyar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan in this section.

On the flip side from Indian perspective, National Champion Surya Shekhar Ganguly suffered his second successive blow. Important results (2nd round):

Group `A1': Ni Hua (Chn, 1.5) drew with Vladimir Malakhov (Rus, 1.5); Alexander Areshchenko (Ukr, 1) lost to Alexey Korotylev (Rus, 2); Valerji Popov (Rus, 1.5 ) drew with Dmitry Jakovenko (Rus, 1.5); Namig Guliyev (Aze, 1) lost to Arkadij Naiditsch (Ger, 2); Pavel Eljanov (Ukr, 2) beat Boris Savchenko (Rus, 1); Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Aze, 1) drew with Sandipan Chanda (1.5); Hannes Stefansson (Isl, 0) lost to Krishnan Sasikiran (1); Kiril Georgiev (Bul, 1) beat Surya Shekhar Ganguly (0)

Group `A2': Abhijeet Gupta (1.5) drew with Igor Kurnosov (Rus, 1.5); Himanshu Sharma (1) lost to Neelotpal Das (2); Parimarjan Negi (1.5) drew with Sergei Iskusnyh (Rus, 1.5), Deep Sengupta (1.5) drew with Alexander Obukhov (Rus, 1.5); Natalia Pogonina (Rus, 0.5) lost to R B Ramesh (1.5); Evgeny Romanov (Rus, 0.5) beat Argyhyadip Das (0.5); Beniamin Glastian (Arm, 1.5) beat P Konguvel (0.5); Vishal Sareen (1) drew with Senff Martin (Ger, 1); S Poobesh Anand (0.5) drew with Gennady Tunik (Rus, 0.5); Almira Skripchenko (Mda, 0) lost to R R Laxman (1)

Group B (3rd round): Saptarshi Roy Chowdhary (2.5) drew with David Kalashian (Arm, 2.5); Prathmesh Mokal (2.5) beat Monika Tsinagova (Est, 1.5); Boris Onoprijchuk (Rus, 1) drew with N Sreenath (1); Dinesh Kumar Sharma (2) got walk over. — PTI

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