The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Harika upstages Spraggett

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jan 29, 2007
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Harika upstages Spraggett

NEW DELHI: Commonwealth ladies champion D. Harika recorded the biggest result of her career when she upstaged Canadian Grandmaster Kevin Spraggett in the fifth round of the Gibtelecom Masters chess tournament in Gibraltar on Saturday.

Aided by two extra kingside pawns, Harika coasted to a 57-move victory and made light of the 212-point rating difference over Spraggett, rated 2633.

Harika's victory was the high point of the Indian performances on this day.

Young Deep Sengupta brought down Israel's GM Alon Greenfeld in 59 moves and former National ladies champion Aarthie Ramaswamy proved equal to veteran Victor Korchnoi.

N. Srinath, the 2005 World under-12 boys' champion, drew creditably with black pieces against Israel's IM Stefan Kristjansson on a day when the only Indian loser was R. B. Ramesh.

The results (involving Indians, fifth round): Hikaru Nakamura (US, 4) bt R.B. Ramesh (3); Sandipan Chanda (3.5) drew with Till Wippermann (Ger, 3.5); Deep Sengupta (4) bt Alon Greenfeld (Isr, 3); D. Harika (3.5) bt Kevin Spraggett (Can, 2.5); Holger Rasch (Ger, 2.5) lost to S. Vijayalakshmi (3.5); Aarthie Ramaswamy (2.5) drew with Victor Korchnoi (Sui, 2.5); Stefan Kristjansson (Isr, 2.5) drew with N. Srinath (2.5); Nisha Mohota (3) bt Juan Urbina Perez (Esp, 2); Tania Sachdev (2.5) bt Richard Millward (Eng, 1.5); S. Meenakshi (2.5) bt Emil Agdestein (Nor, 1.5); Prasanna Rao (2) bt Mouhcine Benaddi (Mar, 1).

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