The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Maghami maintains sole lead

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jan 19, 2010
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Sport

Sport - Chess

Maghami maintains sole lead

Rakesh Rao

Tania holds top-seeded Vietnamese Liem
Lalith Babu-Bitoon game ends in a draw

NEW DELHI: A quick draw on the top board maintained Ehsan Ghaem Maghami’s overnight half-point lead and gave the Iranian plenty of time to plan his strategies for the tougher battles after seven rounds of the eighth Parsvnath International Open chess tournament at the Modern School here.

Maghami and Russian GM Maxim Turov signed peace in just 15 moves.

Later, when the second board battle between two young International Masters M.R. Lalith Babu and Richard Bitoon ended with honours even in 37 moves, Maghami remained the sole leader.

Interestingly, the day produced 11 decisive results spread over the top 16 boards. But most of the Indian aspirants surrendered to their higher-rated overseas rivals. When most of the Grandmasters were busy making amends for their indifferent start, top-seeded Vietnamese Le Quang Liem ran into a stubborn Tania Sachdev, rated 249 points below at 2438, and eventually settled for an 83-move draw.

The Liem-Tania battle was the most watched game of the day. Tania, playing black, fought off a seemingly inferior position in the middle-game even as she repeatedly flirted with the danger of running out of time.

Creditable result

Eventually, the local girl foiled Liem’s designs in an endgame involving a minor piece and two pawns each. Tania saw the precise continuation even under severe time pressure to force a creditable result.

Unlike Tania, Tamil Nadu youngster R. Arun Karthik could not keep his nerve in time-pressure and missed a possible chance to checkmate fifth-seeded Russian GM Dmitry Kryakvin and drew in 50 moves.

The results (Indians unless stated):

Seventh round: Ehsan Ghaem Maghami (Iri, 6.5) drew with Maxim Turov (Rus, 6); Richard Bitoon (Phi, 6) drew with M.R. Lalith Babu (6); Lenic Luka (Slo, 6) bt Swapnil Dhopade (5); Saidali Iuldachev (Uzb, 5.5) drew with Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury (5.5); P.D.S. Girinath (5) lost to Marat Dzhumaev (Uzb, 6); Nilokay Tolstikh (Rus, 6) bt Sahaj Grover (5); Nafisa Muminova (Uzb, 5) drew with Dimakiling Oliver (Phi, 5.5); Le Quang Liem (Vie, 5) drew with Tania Sachdev (5.5); Dmitry Kryakvin (Rus, 5) drew with R. Arun Karthik (5); Vikramaditya Kamble (4.5) lost to Pavel Kotsur (Kaz, 5.5).

Ziaur Rahman (Ban, 5.5) bt K. Priyadarshan (4.5); Suvrajit Saha (4.5) lost to Martyn Kravtsiv (Ukr, 5.5); Swayams Mishra (4.5) lost to Rinat Jumabayev (Kaz, 5.5); R.R. Laxman (5.5) bt Akash Thakur (4.5); Deep Sengupta (5.5) bt Vaibhav Suri (4.5); P. Saravana Krishnan (4.5) lost to Pravin Thipsay (5.5); Andrey Gutov (Rus, 5) drew with Bitan Banerjee (5); V.A.V. Rajesh (4.5) lost to Mikulas Manik (Svk, 5.5); Boris Arkhangelsky (Rus, 5) drew with M.S. Thejkumar (5); Aswin Jayaram (5.5) bt Shiven Khosla (4.5); Varugeese Koshy (5) drew with P. Konguvel (5); P. Karthikeyan (5) drew with Aniruddha Despande (5); M. Vinay Kumar (4.5) lost to Saptarshi Roy (5.5); Argyadip Das (5.5) bt G.V. Sai Krishna (4.5); Santu Mondal (4.5) lost to B.T. Murali Krishnan (5.5).

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

Sport