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G.N.
Gopal is the New International Master
By Praful Zaveri
G.N. Gopal of Kerala is on the way to becoming the next International
Master (IM) of India as he completed his 3rd and final IM norm in the 9th
round of the Atul 44th National A Chess Championship of India in progress
here at Atul with a score of 5.5.
17 year old, Gopal, who has opted for open School examinations to
concentrate on Chess, is one of the promising chess prospects of India. He
gained his 1st norm in the World Junior 2005 at Istanbul and his 2nd norm
at Spain in July 2006. He is being coached by veteran IM Verghese Koshy,
who himself is a participant here. Koshy said that he was very elated with
the achievement of Gopal.
The norms and titles were galore on this day as another 17-year old,
G.Rohit of Andhra Pradesh earned his 1st IM norm, 25-year old,
K.Ratnakaran of Southern Railways completed his well deserved 2nd IM norm
and WGM Dronavali Harika also getting her IM norm.
Meanwhile, top-seeded GM Surya Sekhar Ganguly took the sole lead in the
event by taking full advantage of a mistake committed by GM Dibyendu Barua
in the French defense game to score a full point in just 31 moves. With
this win, Ganguly leads the field with a score of 6.5/9.
GM Abhijit Kunte climbed back into the 2nd position with a very good win
over IM M.R. Venkatesh to join Deepan Chakravarthy and IM S.Arun Prasad in
the 2nd spot with a score of 6 points. A big group of 8-playes are on the
3rd spot with a score of 5.5, which includes 16-year old Aswin Jayaram
from Chennai, a 1st year commerce student, who has proved that his
qualification to this elite event was not a one-off performance.
Results of Round 9:
GM Barua Dibyendu 5.5 lost to GM Ganguly Surya Shekhar 6.5, IM Arun Prasad
S 6 drew GM Deepan Chakkravarthy J 6, IM Venkatesh M R 5 lost to GM Kunte
Abhijit 6, Palit Somak WB 5.5 drew IM D P Singh 5.5, GM Thipsay Pravin M
5.5 drew Rohit G 5.5, Gopal G N 5.5 drew IM Suvrajit Saha 5.5, IM Roy
Chowdhury Saptarshi 5.5 beat GM Ramesh R B 4.5, GM Neelotpal Das 5 drew
Rathnakaran K 5, IM Gupta Abhijeet 5 drew IM Sengupta Deep 5, GM Bakre
Tejas 5 drew WGM Harika Dronavalli 5, Aswin Jayaram 5.5 beat Parikh Valay
4, Murali Krishnan B 5 beat IM Poobesh Anand S 4, IM Prathamesh Sunil
Mokal 4.5 drew IM Lanka Ravi 4, IM Sundararajan Kidambi 4 drew Thejkumar M
S 4, IM Konguvel Ponnuswamy 4 drew IM Babu N Sudhakar 4 IM Girinath P D S
4 IM Prakash G B 4, IM Laxman R R 3.5 lost to IM Saravanan V 4.5, Kamble
Vikramaditya 3.5 lost to Swapnil Dhopade 4.5, IM Roktim Bandyopadhyay 3.5
drew WGM Karavade Eesha 3.5, Syed Anwar Shazuli 4 beat Abhishek Das 4,
Sinha Sudhir Kumar 2 lost to Koshy Varugeese 3.5
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Published on :
29th
Dec, 2006
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