|
Saha Is Sole Leader, Shyam Nikhil Impressive
By Arvind Aaron
Press Officer
Suvrajit Saha of Eastern Railway, Kolkata wrested sole lead by inflicting a sixth round defeat on
Aswin Jayaram of Tamil Nadu on Sep 5. Saha won in 59 - moves in the battle between two players with
thick glasses. Saha moved to six points and is ahead of the 303-player field by a slender half a
points.
In the joint second place with 5.5 points are talented Tamil Nadu teenager P.Shyam Nikhil,
Vikramaditya Kamble (Western Railway) and Lanka Ravi of ONGC, Hyderabad. Many would remember that
Lanka Ravi was the oldest qualifier from the previous National B at Delhi.
The 1976-born Saha had won the National B at Jalandhar in 2002. He looks good for yet another
triumph as he gobbled up pawns of Aswin Jayaram with the black pieces in a Sicilian Najdorf to
win in 59 moves. The National A these days comprises of more players from Bengal. Until the 1970s
players from Maharashtra dominated the premier championship in sheer numbers. Then, Tamil Nadu
wrested that only to concede to the Bengal tigers in the last half a decade.
Viswanathan Anand played and qualified from his very first National B appearance at Ahmedabad in
1983. P.Shyam Nikhil is the same age as Anand was and is one of those tied for the second place
with 5.5 points. The 1992-born Chennai player is one of the fastest growing players. He recently
scored 8/10 and tied for the second place in the Adyar Times at Chennai last month. In the sixth
round, Shyam downed IM Valay Parikh of Gujarat.
Akshat Kamparia had to blame himself for losing to Lanka Ravi as he castled into the firing range
of the black bishops in the Nimzo-Indian defence. Ravi won a piece and stopped Kamparia's good
run.
Vikramaditya Kamble shocked two-time National B champion Varugeese Koshy of ONGC, Chennai to move
to the second spot. Poobesh Anand latched on to an early mistake from Atanu Lahiri of LIC to win.
Chennai's junior star Adhiban went down to former National A champion P.Konguvel of
ONGC, Chennai. Round six went well for the higher rated players but some talented stars did suffer defeats.
Sahaj Grover, the World U-10 champion went down to local player Manish Parmar. Sailesh Raval
bowed to defeat against the experienced northern railway player Gurpreet Pal Singh of Delhi.
Published on : 06.09.2006
|
