The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Seeds continue to stumble

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Monday, Sep 04, 2006

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Sport - Chess

Seeds continue to stumble

Rakesh Rao

AHMEDABAD: Seeds continue to stumble and tumble in the National 'B' chess championship while 20 players maintained their winning spree after three rounds at the Karnavati Club here.

The fact that ninth-seeded veteran International Master Lanka Ravi was the only one among the top 20 ranked players in the leaders' pack reflects the struggle of the better known names so far in this 13-round competition.

On Sunday, International Masters G.B. Prakash, Himanshu Sharma, V. Saravanan, R. Balasubramanium and Rahul Shetty hit the casualty list while other IMs like Poobesh Anand, P. Konguvel, C.S. Gokhale, Dinesh Sharma and Varugeese Koshy had to settle for draws. WGMs D. Harika and Aarthie Ramaswamy succumbed to less-rated Praveen Prasad and Sagar Shah.

Jairam dazzles

On the top board, G.B. Joshi tossed away a promising position under time-pressure against Poobesh. Saravanan, in a better position against Laltu Chatterji, lost on time. Youngster Ashwin Jairam produced an explosive performance to dismantle Balasubramanium in quick time.

Meanwhile, the organisers received 30 chess clocks from Bombay Chess Association and managed 20 more locally to overcome the crisis arising out of the dearth of clocks in this premier event.

Reacting to the reports published in The Hindu regarding the acute shortage of chess clocks, the Gujarat State Chess Association Secretary Vinay Parikh said, "The players, too, are responsible for the situation. There are several senior players here, who have chess clocks but do not care to bring it to the tournament hall. In contrast, the majority of young players prefer their own clocks. Even when the tournament circular clearly States that every association must provide two clocks for every four of its players, no one cares."

When asked, one of the senior players was quick to point out: "How can the players be blamed when it is the responsibility of the state associations to send clocks with its players."

Clearly, in order to ensure that a similar situation does not arise in future, the All India Chess Federation will have to get tough with the State associations and make sure its own rules and regulations find the respect of its affiliates and players alike.

The results (third round):

G.B. Joshi (2.5) drew with Poobesh Anand (2.5); M. Srinivasa Rao (2.5) drew with Valay Parikh (2.5); Lanka Ravi (3) bt Sriram Sarja (2); Himanshu Sharma (2) lost to Akshat Khamparia (3); Laltu Chatterji (3) bt V. Saravanan (2); D. Harika (2) lost to Praveen Prasad (3); R. Ashwath (2.5) drew with Dinesh Sharma (2.5); R. Balasubramanium (2) lost to Ashwin Jayaram (3); Kantilal Dave (2) lost to Vikramaditya Kamble (3); Suvrajit Saha (3) bt Vinod Bhagwat (2); Ram Prakash (2.5) drew with Prathamesh Mokal (2.5); Thej Kumar (3) bt V. Hariharan (2); Sudhakar Babu (2.5) drew with Sudhir Sinha (2.5); Varugeese Koshy (2.5) drew with S. K. Sinha (2.5); Pramod Kumar Singh (2) lost to Eesha Karavade (3); Atanu Lahiri (2) lost to Moti Ram (3); Debasish Mukherjee (3) bt Rahul Shetty (2); Soumya Ranjan Mishra (2) lost to Kiran Mohanty (3); Saheli Nath (2) lost to K. Gunasekaran (3); Anup Deshmukh (3) bt Abhishek Kelkar (2); Manthan Choksi (2) lost to Arjun Tiwari (3); P. Shyam Nikhil S(3) bt Mehar Chinna Reddy (2); S. Mari Arul (2.5) drew with Swapnil Dhopade (2.5); V. S. Negi (2.5) drew with Nasir Wajih (2.5); Biswajit Chatterjee (2) lost to Abhishek Das (3); Vikramjit Singh (3) bt Fenil Shah (2); Baij Nath Prasad (2) lost to Syed Shazuli (3); K. Ratnakaran (2.5) bt J. Malleshwara Rao (1.5); P. Konguvel (2) drew with Nirav Rajasuba (2); T. Purushothaman (2.5) bt G. B. Prakash (1.5).

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