The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Thej Kumar surprises Ziaur Rahman

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Thej Kumar surprises Ziaur Rahman

Special Correspondent

MUMBAI: The trend of Indians upstaging overseas Grandmasters continued in the Mayor’s Cup International Open chess tournament when Karnataka’s M.S. Thej Kumar shocked eighth seed Bangladesh’s Ziaur Rahman in the fifth round here on Wednesday.

Thejkumar outplayed Rahman in 56 moves to join Grandmasters Shukrat Safin (Uzbekistan) and Abdulla Al-Rakib (Bangladesh) in the lead with five points at the Goregaon Sports Complex.

Safin beat S. Satyapragyan in 35 moves and Al-Rakib got the better of B. Adhiban in 44 moves.

Ironically, the shortest game was played on the top board where M.R. Venkatesh and K. Humpy drew in just 15 moves of Ruy Lopez. On the second board, young Deep Sengupta proved equal to third seeded Polish GM Bartlomiej Macieja in 34 moves of French Defence. Railways’ B.T. Murali Krishnan drew with GM Reefat Bin Sattar of Bangladesh in 30 moves.

The results (Indians unless stated): Fifth round: M.R. Venkatesh (4.5) drew with K. Humpy (4.5); Bartlomiej Macieja (Pol, 4.5) drew with Deep Sengupta (4.5); Adullah Al-Rakib (Ban, 5) bt B. Adhiban (4); M.S. Thej Kumar (5) bt Ziaur Rahman (Ban, 4); R.R. Laxman (4.5) drew with Himanshu Sharma (4.5); Reefat Bin Sattar (Ban, 4.5) drew with B.T. Murali Krishnan (4.5); S. Satyapragyan (4) lost to Shukhrat Safin (Uzb, 5); Michal Krasenkow (Pol, 4.5) bt Arjun Tiwari (3.5); C.S. Gokhale (3.5) lost to Abhijit Kunte (4.5); M.R. Lalith Babu (4.5) bt K. Ratnakaran (3.5); R.B. Ramesh (4) drew with J. Ramakrishna (4); Ram S. Krishnan (4) drew with S. Arun Prasad (4); Tejas Bakre (4.5) bt Sagar Shah (3.5); G. B. Joshi (4.5) bt Sriram Jha (3.5); G.A. Stany (4) drew with Saptarshi Roy (4); Ankit Rajpara (3.5) lost to Swapnil Dhopade (4.5); Sai Meera (3) lost to Elizbar Ubilava (Esp, 4); Merab Gagunashvili (Geo, 4) bt Nimmy George (3); Anton Filipov (Uzb, 4) bt Sudhir Sinha (3); N. Srinath (3) lost to Saidali Iuldachev (Uzb, 4).

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