The Hindu : Sport : Sudhakar Babu holds Dreev

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jan 17, 2007
ePaper

Sport

Sport

Sudhakar Babu holds Dreev

Special Correspondent

Youngsters' day out

NEW DELHI: It took N. Sudhakar Babu 32 years of competitive chess to post the biggest result of his career.

The 41-year-old Chennai-based manager of Indian Bank had never played anyone as highly rated as the Russian top seed Alexey Dreev even during his prime when he represented India in the Olympiads of 1990 and 1992.

On Tuesday, the twice National `B' champion showed that he still has a lot left in the tank by making light of a difference of 345 rating points and proving equal to Dreev.

Babu, part of the early 1980s' young brigade consisting of names like Viswanathan Anand, Dibyendu Barua, Neeraj Kumar Mishra, Rohini Khadilkar among others, drew from his vast experience to pull off the upset.

After three rounds, 20 players shared the lead.

Unusual ploy

In this third round encounter in Queen's Gambit Accepted, Dreev, rated 2658, surprised Babu on the fourth move by showing his inclination to retain the gambit pawn, a ploy not usually adopted by the established names.

Undeterred, Babu found compensation through his control of the dark squares in the centre of the board. Eventually, after a series of exchange of pieces, the game reached an ending with players having a queen and an equal number of pawns.

As a result of this 45-move deadlock, a few other brilliant performances from some youngsters stood pushed to the background. A day after the 2005 World under-10 boys champion Sahaj Grover drew with Grandmaster Pravin Thipsay, Aditya Udeshi, P. Shyam Nikhil, Prasanna Rao and Padmini Rout had their moments against some illustrious names.

Udeshi stuns Mokal

Udeshi stunned IM Prathamesh Mokal, Shyam Nikhil drew with Bangladesh GM Ziaur Rehman, Prasanna held IM Poobesh Anand and Padmini raised visions of victory before settling for a draw with Pakistan's number one IM Mahmood Lodhi.

Two other overseas GMs, Ukraine's Yuri Drozdovskij and Egypt's 19-year-old Ahmed Adly were also held.

The results (Indians unless stated, third round): N. Sudhakar Babu (2.5) drew with Alexey Dreev (Rus, 2.5); Mehdi Hasan (2.5) drew with Yuri Drozdovskij (Ukr, 2.5); Ziaur Rehman (Ban, 2.5) drew with P. Shyam Nikhil (2.5); R. Balasubramanium (2) lost to Abhijit Kunte (3); Nassir Wajih (2) lost to Saidali Iuldachev (Uzb, 3); Ahmed Adley (Egy, 2.5) drew with Taibur Rahman (2.5) Enamul Hossain (Ban, 2.5) drew with Gurpreet Pal Singh (2.5); M.R. Lalith Babu (2) lost to Dibyendu Barua (3); Abhijeet Gupta (3) bt Sohel Chowdhury (2); C.J. Arvind (2) lost to S. Kidambi (3); Shukhrat Safin (3) bt T. Purushothaman (2); C. Natarajan (2.5) drew with S. Vijayalakshmi ( 2.5); G.B. Joshi (2.5) drew with Mohammad Ezat (Egy, 2.5); G.N. Gopal (2.5) drew with Prakash Ram (2.5); Prasenjit Dutta (2) lost to Sriram Jha (3); Prasanna Rao (2.5) drew with Poobesh Anand (2.5); O.T. Anil Kumar (2) lost to S. Arun Prasad (3); S. Satyapragyan (2.5) drew with Arun Karthik (2.5); Debaraj Chatterjee (2.5) drew with G. Rohit (2.5); Padmini Rout (2.5) drew with Mahmood Lodhi (Pak, 2.5); Aditya Udesh (3) bt Prathamesh Mokal (2).

Important results (second round): Jitendra Kumar Choudhary drew with Surya Shekhar Ganguly, Sohan Phadke bt Diwakar Prasad Singh; K. Priyadarshan bt Neelotpal Das; M.R. Venkatesh lost to J. Sridhar; Sahaj Grover drew with Pravin Thipsay; Swati Mohota drew with Niaz Murshed; Naveen Hegde drew with Himanshu Sharma; Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury drew with Fenil Shah.

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

Sport