VALSAD: It was the kind of game that reinforced Surya Shekhar Ganguly's belief. The three-time National champion was up against third-seeded Diwakar Prasad Singh, the man believed to be playing increasingly like the computer chess software called `Deep Junior' and due to face an enquiry commission constituted by the All India Chess Federation to look into his stunning sequence of results this year.

When Ganguly eventually overpowered Diwakar after the latter missed a drawing continuation in the 11th round of the Atul National `A' chess championship, he was quick to state, "I had come prepared to play a computer and my plan worked."

Body search

Interestingly, a body search carried out with the help of metal detectors on Diwakar and Ganguly, at the end of the game, failed to unearth any device that helps in transmitting or receiving signals.

With two rounds to go, Ganguly leads with eight points, half a point ahead of Deepan Chakkravarthy, who quickly drew with fellow GM Neelotpal Das.

G.N. Gopal and D. Harika continued their amazing unbeaten run by scoring over K. Ratnakaran and M.R. Venkatesh after being the only two winners on the top nine boards.

But the talking point of the day remained the top-table battle. Ganguly maintained his view that Diwakar continues to get computer-aided assistance during games but cannot establish how. He was quick to acknowledge the advice of Latvian GM Alexei Shirov who said, "Keep it simple (when you play a computer)."

Ganguly's allegations

Ganguly, Shirov's second in last month's Tal memorial tournament in Moscow, said, "He wanted me to avoid complications since a computer is always faster in calculating moves as compared to a human mind. A computer neither understands strategy nor has intuition like human beings.

"There was a time when Diwakar could have easily created a `fortress' and forced a draw but then, a computer does not understand the concept of a fortress. So he played on and made some irrational moves, like computers sometimes do, and lost. If a player, say like Abhijit Kunte, was in Diwakar's position, he could have drawn easily," said Ganguly to substantiate his point after his 73-move victory in Queen's Gambit Accepted.

Diwakar remained calm after the game and said, "I missed a simple draw."

The results (11th round): Diwakar Prasad Singh (6.5) lost to Surya Shekhar Ganguly (8); Neelotpal Das (6.5) drew with Deepan Chakkravarthy (7.5); Abhijit Kunte (6.5) drew with S. Arun Prasad (7); Somak Palit (6.5) drew with Pravin Thipsay (6.5); Dibyendu Barua (6.5) drew with Suvrajit Saha (6.5); Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury (6.5) drew with G. Rohit (6.5); G.N. Gopal (7) bt K. Ratnakaran (5.5); B.T. Murali Krishnan (6) drew with Abhijeet Gupta (6); M.R. Venkatesh (5.5) drew with D. Harika (6.5); Prathamesh Mokal (5.5) lost to Deep Sengupta (6.5); Ashwin Jayaram (6.5) bt Lanka Ravi (5.5); R.B. Ramesh (5) lost to Syed Anwar Shazuli (6); P.D.S. Girinath (5.5) drew with Tejas Bakre (5.5); S. Poobesh Anand (6) bt M.S. Thej Kumar (5); T.S. Ravi (5.5) drew with N. Sudhakar Babu (5); S. Kidambi (5.5) bt R.R. Laxman (4.5); V. Saravanan (5.5) bt Swapnil Dhopade (4.5); P. Konguvel (5) bt Himanshu Sharma (4); Vikramaditya Kamble (5) bt G.B. Prakash (4); Abhishek Das (4.5) drew with Valay Parikh (4.5); Varugeese Koshy (4) drew with Swati Ghate (4.5); Eesha Karavade (4.5) drew with Sudhir Sinha (3); Roktim Bandyopadhyay (5) bye.

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