The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Ratnakaran holds Ganguly in 146 moves

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Ratnakaran holds Ganguly in 146 moves

P.K. Ajith Kumar

Ganguly is still leading the table along with Negi
Akshayraj Kore the day’s lone winner

MANGALORE: The rest day seems to have done them a world of good. All the competitors at the 46th National ‘A’ chess championship came back refreshed and fought it out hard in the eighth round at the Karnataka Bank Auditorium here on Thursday. What if there was only one decisive game?

Akshayraj Kore may have been the day’s lone winner, against M.S. Thejkumar, but it proved a merry Christmas for K. Ratnakaran and S. Satyapragyan, who held Surya Shekhar Ganguly and Parimarjan Negi, the top two seeds.

The day’s other drawn games featured P. Konguvel and Sriram Jha, Praveen Thipsay and J. Deepan Chakravarthy and M. Shyam Sundar and B. Adhiban.

Ganguly is still leading the table along with Negi, with five points each. Ratnakaran has maintained his sole second position with 4.5 points. Five rounds remain.

Interesting game

It was quite an interesting game between Ganguly, who employed the Sicilian Defence, and Ratnakaran.

It lasted 146 moves and it was the Fifty-move rule, which says a player can claim a draw if no capture has been made and no pawn moved in the last 50 moves, that came to Ratnakaran’s rescue in the rook against rook-and-bishop ending.

He promptly made the claim and got the half-point.

Kore sacrificed a couple of pawns on his way to a 40-move win against Thejkumar.

Satyapragyan and Negi signed peace after 28 moves of Sicilian Defence, while Konguvel and Jha drew after 43 moves of a Spanish game.

Sicilian Defence was quite the flavour of the day, as the Thipsay-Deepan and the Shyam-Adhiban games also featured it.

Academy in Chennai

The All India Chess Federation (AICF) vice-president Samir Salgoacar, while talking to reporters here, said that the federation will set up an academy in Chennai early next year.

“The Fide International Chess Academy (FICA) will have GMs from around the world giving training to youngsters,” he said.

Mr. Salgoacar also said that Goa will host a match between India’s Parimarjan Negi and China’s Hou Yifan in a match next year.

“Parimarjan is among the rising stars in men’s chess and Yifan among women,” he said.

The results (eighth round): K. Ratnakaran 4.5 drew with Surya Shekhar Ganguly 5; P. Konguvel 3.5 drew with Sriram Jha 2.5; Praveen Thipsay 3 drew with J. Deepan Chakravarthy 4; M.S. Thejkumar 3 lost to Akshayraj Kore 4; S. Satyapragyan 4 drew with Parimarjan Negi 5; M. Shyam Sundar 3.5 drew with B. Adhiban 3.

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