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Commonwealth
Chess Championship 2006
By
Mr.Praful Zaveri
Abhijeet Gupta is the Sole Leader
IM Abhijeet Gupta of India surprised himself and everyone by assuming the
sole lead after the end of 4th round with as many points in the LIC/ONGC/MTNL
sponsored Commonwealth Chess Championship 2006, being held at Eskay
Resorts – Borivali.
With ‘Safety First’ measures adopted by almost all of the overnight joint
leaders, the deadlock was broke by IM Abhijeet Gupta, the player from
Indian Oil, with a crushing win over WGM S. Meenakshi. Abhijeet, playing
white, appeared to be prepared adequately in the slav defense as his
pieces obtained good positions. He launched a blistering King-side attack
by sacrificing a pawn and thereafter won an exchange. Meenakshi
surrendered when faced with an inevitable mate on move 31.
The game between the overnight leaders, Ganguly v/s Kidambi, Tejas Bakre
v/s Pravin Thipsay and Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury v/s Neelotpal Das turned
out to be a dull affair for the spectators as they agreed to split points
within 20-moves.
The only fight was observed on the top board between IM M.R. Venkatesh and
the top seeded defending champion, GM Nigel Short. The Ruy Lopez opening
opted by IM Venkatesh saw a theoretical battle with both players on an
equal footing. After the exchange of most of the pieces, Venkatesh managed
to win a pawn on move 45. However, the extra pawn was not sufficient in
the Knight ending and the players agreed draw on move 51.
The other notable result was the upset victory scored by WGM Harika
against GM Abhijeet Kunte on board 8, wherein Harika took full advantage
of Abhijeet’s unimaginative play of overstretching his position. She won a
piece on move 24 and thereafter, the rest was display of fine technique to
romp home.
Harika now shares the 2nd spot jointly with eleven players viz. Nigel
Short, M.R. Venkatesh, S.S. Ganguly, S.Kidambi, Tejas Bakre, Pravin
Thipsay, Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury, Neelotpal Das, Arghyadip Das, and P.
Karthikeyan and Praveen Kumar.
Amongst the other notable upsets, Arghyadip won against GM Niaz Murshed of
Bangladesh, Karthikeyan against WGM S. Vijayalakshmi, G. Rohit against WIM
Bhagyashree Thipsay and FM Priyadarshan against IM R.R. Laxman.
Key Results of Round 4:
IM M R Venkatesh (3.5) drew GM Nigel Short (3.5), GM S S Ganguly (3.5)
drew IM S Kidambi (3.5), GM Tejas Bakre (3.5) drew GM Praveen Thipsay
(3.5), IM Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury (3.5) drew GM Neelotpal Das (3.5),
Abhijeet Gupta (4) beat WGM S Meenakshi (3), GM Deepan Chakravarthy (3)
drew C Praveen Kumar (3.5), IM Chandrasekhar Gokhale (3) drew GM Sandipan
Chanda (3), WGM Harika D (3.5) beat GM Abhijit Kunte (2.5), GM Dibyendu
Barua (3) drew IM Himanshu Sharma (3), GM Niaz Murshed (3) lost to Das
Arghyadip (3.5), IM Sudhakar Babu (3) drew Akshayraj Kore (3), IM Arun
Prasad drew (3) FM Sai Srinivas (3), P Karthikeyan (3.5) beat IM S
Vijayalakshmi (2.5), G.N. Gopal (3) drew Shashikant Kutwal (2.5)
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Published on 24.11.2006
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