VALSAD: With at least nine players fancying their chances of occupying five of the six berths in the Indian team for 2007, a thrilling finale is in the offing before the curtain comes down on the Atul National `A' chess championship here on Friday.

A quick draw with G.N. Gopal kept favourite Surya Shekhar Ganguly at the top of the heap at 8.5 points. Assured of retaining his place in the National squad, Ganguly enjoys a half-point lead over two former Asian junior champions Deepan Chakkravarthy and S. Arun Prasad.

Youngsters' challenge

The two youngsters have to remain undefeated in the final round to make the Indian team for the first time.

G. Rohit, Suvrajit Saha, G.N. Gopal, Abhijit Kunte and Neelotpal Das are on 7.5 points but cannot be too sure of being part of the National squad by taking draws on Friday. D. Harika and Dibyendu Barua, who drew on Thursday, have an outside chance of making the top-six bracket with last-round victories since they have impressive tie-break scores.

For the title, Ganguly looks the best bet since he not only leads but also enjoys the best tie-break score.

Deepan beats Diwakar

Deepan, who let the title slip away in the closing stages of the last National championship, will be happy with a draw but that result would not suit Rohit who also will be trying to be part of the National squad for the first time.

Arun Prasad, who punished maiden International Master norm-seeker Ashwin Jayaram in 23 moves after foxing him with a prepared line of Anti-Grunfeld, plays Saha.

The soft-spoken Saha revived his chances by crushing Pravin Thipsay.

The results (12th round): Surya Shekhar Ganguly (8.5) drew with G.N. Gopal (7.5); Deepan Chakkravarthy (8) drew with Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury (7); Arun Prasad (8) bt Ashwin Jayaram (6.5); Abhijit Kunte (7.5) bt Somak Palit (6.5); G. Rohit (7.5) bt Diwakar Prasad Singh (6.5); Suvrajit Saha (7.5) bt Pravin Thipsay (6.5); Deep Sengupta (6.5) lost to Neelotpal Das (7.5); D. Harika (7) drew with Dibyendu Barua (7); Abhijeet Gupta (7) bt Poobesh Anand (6); Syed Anwar Shazuli (6.5) drew with B.T. Murali Krishnan (6.5); Lanka Ravi (6) drew with M.R. Venkatesh (6); P.D.S. Girinath (5.5) lost to S. Kidambi (6.5); Tejas Bakre (6) drew with V. Saravanan (6); K. Ratnakaran (6.5) bt T.S. Ravi (5.5); Roktim Bandyopadhyay (5) lost to Prathamesh Mokal (6.5); R.B. Ramesh (5.5) drew with P. Konguvel (5.5); M.S. Thej Kumar (5.5) drew with Vikramaditya Kamble (5.5); N. Sudhakar Babu (6) bt R.R. Laxman (4.5); Valay Parikh (5.5) bt Eesha Karavade (4.5); Swati Ghate (4.5) lost to Abhishek Das (5.5); Swapnil Dhopade (5) drew with Varugeese Koshy (4.5); Himanshu Sharma (5) bt Sudhir Sinha (3); G.B. Prakash (5) bye.

Top-10 final round pairings: Neelotpal-Ganguly; Deepan-Rohit; Arun-Saha; Harika-Kunte; Gopal-Abhijeet; Murali-Diwakar; Thipsay-Mokal; Kidambi-Ashwin; Palit-Ratnakaran.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail