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Ganguly snatches lead

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: In-form Indians enjoyed their best day on the leading boards in the 6th Parsvnath International chess tournament after Surya Shekhar Ganguly snatched the lead by ending the seven-game winning sequence of Dzhumaev Marat in the eighth round at the Modern School here on Friday.

Ganguly’s clinical 37-move triumph with black pieces brightened the prospects of an Indian emerging as the strongest in this 10-round event. With two rounds to go, Ganguly leads with 7.5 points, half a point ahead of his ninth-round rival Abhijeet Gupta.

When viewed with Abhijeet’s stunning 38-move victory over fifth seed Elizbar Ubilava, K. Ratnakaran’s 98-move draw against top-seeded Iranian Ehsan Ghaem Maghami and Debashis Das’s 19-move peace treaty with ninth-seeded Vietnamese Ngyuen Anh Dung, the performances on this day truly highlighted India’s varied chess strength.

Memorable win

Abhijeet, who trained with Ubilava for three weeks last year, gave no undue respect for the 57-year-old, once a trainer of Viswanathan Anand. The Bhilwara-youngster avoided a likely draw by sacrificing a rook for knight in the middle game. He then launched a decisive kingside attack and eventually scored a memorable victory.

To add to the joy, Madurai’s C. Praveen Kumar stunned 10th seeded Bangladesh International Master Enamul Hossain to attain his second International Master-norm. The 22-year-old made his first norm in the second edition of this event here in 2004.

Surprise outcomes

In two other surprise outcomes, Roktim Bandyopadhyay proved stronger to 11th seeded Iranian GM Morteza Mahjoob in 43 moves and V. Saravanan held sixth-seeded Ukrainian GM Yuri Solodovnichenko in 45 moves.

Kiran Manisha Mohanty drew with GM Pravin Thipsay for the second time in two months, V.A.V. Rajesh surprised IM Aswin Jayaram and 14-year-old Bitan Banerjee held IM S. Kidambi, rated 2442.

The results: Eighth round (Indians unless stated): Marat Dzhumaev (Uzb, 7) lost to Surya Shekhar Ganguly (7.5); Elizbar Ubilava (Esp, 6) lost to Abhijeet Gupta (7); Ziaur Rehman (Ban, 6.5) drew with Saidali Iuldachev (Uzb, 6.5); Nguyen Anh Dung (Vie, 6.5) drew with Debashis Das (6.5); Ehsan Ghaem Maghami (Iri, 6) drew with K. Ratnakaran (6); Tania Sachdev (5.5) lost to Igor Kurnosov (Rus, 6.5); Abhijit Kunte (6.5) bt Akshayraj Kore (5.5); V. Saravanan (6) drew with Yuri Solodovnichenko (Ukr, 6); Praveen Kumar (6.5) bt Enamul Hossain (Ban, 5.5); Morteza Mahjoob (Iri, 5.5) lost to Roktim Bandyopadhyay (5.5);G.B. Prakash (6.5) bt Shukhrat Safin (Uzb, 5.5); Sriram Jha (6.5) bt J. Ramakrishna (5.5); Swayams Mishra (6) drew with M.R. Venkatesh (6); Aswin Jayaram (5) lost to V.A.V. Rajesh (6); Pravin Thipsay (5.5) drew with Kiran Manisha Mohanty (5.5); Ram Prakash (6) bt Sapar Batyrov (Tkm, 5); Shojaat Ghane (Iri, 5) lost to Soumyaranjan Mishra (6); Bitan Banerjee (5.5) drew with S. Kidambi (5.5); P.D.S. Girinath (6) bt P. Saravana Krishna (5); Praveen Prasad (5) lost to S. Arun Prasad (6); Shekhar Sahu (5) lost to Morteza Darban (Iri, 6); Himanshu Sharma (6) bt Pradeep Kumar (5); Z. Amanov (Kaz, 6) bt C. Natarajan (5); Swati Ghate (6) bt Krishna Thapa (Nep, 5); N. Sudhakar Babu (6) bt Rajesh Diwan (5); Meghan Gupte (5) lost to P. Karthikeyan (6); D. P. Singh (6) bt Rakesh Kulkarni (5); Anurag Mhamal (5) lost to Nikhil Shyam (6); D. Atul (5) lost to M.R. Lalith Babu (6); K. Priyadarshan (5.5) drew with J.K. Raju (5.5).

Prasenjit Datta (6) bt Shiven Khosla (5); Sayantan Das (5.5) drew with Gurpreet Pal Singh (5.5); R.R. Laxman (5.5) bt Avinash Sethi (5).

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