The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Farcical draws on the leading boards

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Saturday, Sep 09, 2006

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Sport - Chess

Farcical draws on the leading boards

Rakesh Rao

AHMEDABAD: Farcical draws on the leading boards reached ridiculous proportions with players on seven of the first nine tables shaking hands after making single-digit moves in the 11th round of the National `B' chess championship at the Karnavati Club here on Friday.

As a result of these friendly draws, there was no change in the leading standings. Lanka Ravi continued to lead, with nine points, followed by Himanshu Sharma (8.5). Seventeen players are on eight points.

With two rounds to go, the closest contenders for the 30 qualifying spots for the next National `A' have a reason to justify these draws on top tables.

In this 13-round event, a tally of nine points seems the likely cut-off for the qualifiers. Even some of those at 8.5 points, with superior progressive scores, are hopeful of making the top-30 bracket. But a high number of agreed draws at the top bring down the qualifying chances of those fighting for victories on the lower boards.

Globally, in chess, the practise of agreed draws after just a few moves has come from criticism for several quarters. Since the FIDE does not stop the players from enacting farcical draws, some organisers, like the one behind Mtel Masters in Bulgaria, make it mandatory for the players to play a stipulated number of moves before proposing a draw. Even then, the Chief Arbiter is the one who steps in to decide whether the game should continue.

The results (11th round): Lanka Ravi (9) drew with R.R. Laxman (8); K. Ratnakaran (8) drew with Himanshu Sharma (8.5); Deep Sengupta (8) drew with Vikramaditya Kamble (8); Poobesh Anand (8) drew with Ashwin Jayaram (8); Prathamesh Mokal (8) drew with Valay Parikh (8); Swati Ghate (8) drew with Sudhir Sinha (8); Roktim Bandyopadhyay (8) drew with Suvrajit Saha (8); Thej Kumar (8) drew with D. Harika (8); Somak Palit (8) drew with S. Satyapragyan (7.5); Shashikant Kutwal (7.5) drew with P. Konguvel (7.5); S. Mari Arul (7.5) drew with G. Rohit (7.5); Arghyadip Das (7.5) drew with K. Gunasekaran (7.5); B.T. Murali Krishnan (8) bt P. Shyaam Nikhil (7); K.V. Shantharam (7) lost to P.D.S. Girinath (8); Eesha Karavade (7.5) drew with Syed Shazuli (7.5); Gurpreetpal Singh (7.5) drew with M.B. Muralidharan (7.5); V. Saravanan (7.5) bt L.V. Sivakumar (7); Saptarshi Roy (7.5) bt Akshat Khamparia (6.5); R. Balasubramanium (6.5) drew with Moti Ram (7.5); N. Sudhakar Babu (7.5) bt V.S. Negi (6.5); N. Sanjay (7.5) bt M. Vinay Kumar (6.5); Laltu Chatterji (6.5) lost to Varugeese Koshy (7.5); Ram Prakash (7.5) bt C. Praveen Kumar (6.5); Atanu Lahiri (7.5) bt Vikram Saralaya (6.5); R. Arun Karthik (7) drew with B. Adhiban (7); C.S. Unni (7) drew with Anup Deshmukh (7); Kiran Manisha Mohanty (6.5) lost to Abhishek Das (7.5); Swapnil Dhopade (7.5) bt M. Shrinivasa Rao (6.5); Gajendra Singh (6.5) drew with C.S. Gokhale (6.5).

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