The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Nigel Short, Venkatesh still maintain lead

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Monday, Nov 27, 2006
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Sport - Chess

Nigel Short, Venkatesh still maintain lead

P. K. Ajith Kumar

MUMBAI: That Nigel Short is still at the top is about as surprising as a top-order batting collapse by Team India. What is surprising to many people, including the top-seeded cricket-crazy Englishman, is that it is M.R. Venkatesh who is still sharing the lead with him, not one of the much higher rated Indians.

Short and Venkatesh have 6.5 points each after defeating Deepan Chakravarthy and Neelotpal Das, respectively, in the seventh round of the ONGC-LIC Commonwealth chess championship at Eskay Resorts here on Sunday.

Chanda second

With three rounds remaining, they are half-a-point ahead of Sandipan Chanda, who is in the sole second position after scoring another hard-fought victory, this time over Dibyendu Barua. On 5.5 points are fifth seed Abhijit Kunte, S. Vijayalakshmi and Himanshu Sharma.

In the eighth round on Monday, Chanda takes on Short, Venkatesh meets Vijayalakshmi and Himanshu plays Kunte.

Playing on the white side of a Closed Sicilian on the top board, Short found the right moves to put pressure on the young Indian, who chose to self-pin his knight, trying to blunt a potent attack. Shortly after wining in 43 moves, the top seed said: "I chose to stay away from the main lines because I found that my opponent is `well-booked'. He has improved a lot of late."

Improved player

Deepan indeed is one of the most improved Indian players, while Venkatesh is one player who should have achieved more, given his undoubted talent, but he has done wonderfully well so far in this tournament though.

On Sunday, on the second board with black pieces he won in 55 moves of Sicilian Pelican, punishing Neelotpal, who seemed over ambitious when he sacrificed an exchange.

"That was a wrong move," admitted Neelotpal, "but I was under time pressure."

On the third board, Chanda made good use of his superior pawn structure in an ending featuring rooks and minor pieces to win in 60 moves. Kunte defeated S. Arun Prasad in 63 moves of Queen's Gambit Declined.

Important results (seventh round, Indians unless specified): Nigel Short (Eng) 6.5 bt Deepan Chakravarthy 5; Neelotpal Das 5 lost to M.R. Venkatesh 6.5; Sandipan Chanda 6 bt Dibyendu Barua 5; Abhijit Kunte 5.5 bt S. Arun Prasad 5; Sriram Jha 5 drew with R.B. Ramesh 5.

Himanshu Sharma 5.5 bt Abjijeet Gupta 4.5; Arghyadip Das 5 drew with Sundararajan Kidambi 5; S. Vijayalakshmi 5.5 bt Swati Ghate 4.5; S.P. Sethuraman 5 drew with Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury 5; N. Sudhakar Babu 5 drew with G.B. Prakash 5; Ziaur Rahman (Ban) 4.5 drew with C.S. Gokhale 5.

Surya Shekhar Ganguly 5 bt Prathamesh Mokal 4; Praveen Thipsay 5 bt Somak Palit 4; Wu Shaobin (Sin) 5 bt P. Nikil Shyam 4; D. Harika 4.5 drew with Niaz Murshed (Ban) 4.5; S. Meenakshi 4.5drew with Tejas Bakre 4.5; Akshayraj Kore 4.5 drew with Aarthie Ramaswamy 4.5.

K. Ratnakaran 5 bt Swapnil Dhopade 4; S. Satyapragyan 5 bt Donavan Van Den Heever (SA) 4; Eesha Karvade 4.5 drew with G.N. Gopal 4.5; N. Srinath 4 lost to G. Rohit 5; Saptarshi Roy 4.5 bt Kanuri Tejaswi 4; Tania Sachdev 4.5 bt Akshat Khamparia 3.5; R. Ashwath 4.5 bt N. Sanjay 3.5.

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