The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Ganguly emerges champion

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Mar 06, 2006

Sport

Sport - Chess

Ganguly emerges champion

Sports Reporter

HYDERABAD: National champion Surya Sekhar Ganguly of Indian Oil emerged champion in the ONGC Cup international Grandmasters Open chess tournament at Kotla Vijaya Bhaskara Reddy Indoor Stadium here on Sunday.

For someone who lagged behind the leaders initially, the top-seed Ganguly not only bounced back into reckoning but also realised his goal of winning an international event after a long gap, by virtue of better tie-break score despite sharing the top spot with five others — Deepan Chakravarthy, S. Arun Prasad, Pavel Kotsur, D.P. Singh and Zia-ur-Rehman — with eight points each.

In a game which is all about calculations in the final round, the top two boards featuring Pavel Kotsur and Ganguly and Praveen Thipsay and Deepan Chakravarthy ended in double-quick short draws and they were only awaiting the results of the other games. In a way, Jharkhand's D.P. Singh did a big favour to the other contenders by outwitting GM Alexander Fominyh in Sicilian Tianmov variation. Special prizes were given to Swathi Ghate and S. Vijayalakshmi (best women players), J.R.C. Prasad, Girish A. Kaushik and P. Kamalakar (best unrated players), N. Dhiraj Kumar (best unrated AP player).

Final placings (with prize money in brackets): 1. Surya Sekhar Ganguly 8 pts (Rs. 2 lakhs), 2. Deepan Chakravarthy 8 (Rs. 1.5 lakhs), 3. S. Arun Prasad 8 (Rs. 1.20 lakhs), 4. Pavel Kotsur 8 (Rs. 70,000), 5. D.P. Singh 8 (Rs. 40,000), 6. Zia-ur-Rehman 8 (Rs. 30,000), 7. Enamul Hossain 7.5 (Rs. 20,000), 8. Pravin Thipsay 7.5 (Rs. 15,000), 9. Niaz Murshed 7.5 (Rs.12,000), 10. Abhijit Kunte 7.5 (Rs. 10,000), 11. R.B. Ramesh 7.5 (Rs. 5,000), 12. Vishal Sareen 7.5 (Rs. 5,000).

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