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Favourites Chennai-A Lose
One Point
By Arvind Aaron
The 10th National Cities Chess Championship went for a decisive start with
favourites having a field day at the Hall of Chess in Chennai on February
11.
Chennai-A, the top ranked team lost a vital full point in the top table
when IM R.Balasubramaniam lost to George Daniel of BSNL representing Che-D.
Chennai-A thus won the match 3-1 while ten other teams blanked lower rated
teams 4-0 to take the lead. "He played the Catalan opening with white and
lost some pawns and I won the queen ending," said George Daniel, a well
known middle-aged chess player from Chennai.
The National Cities is organised by the T.Nagar Chess Academy and
sponsored by the Shipping Corporation of India. Chennai-B represented by
Indian Bank team, the second seed won 4-0 against Chennai-F. When the
matches started after a brief power failure, a record 27-teams were in the
fray. Most were Chennai teams and were named Chennai-A to Chennai-M.
Kanchipuram-A, the defending champions won 4-0 and have a formidable
line-up. They include Syed Anwar Shazuli, A.Sankar, C.Natarajan,
T.J.Sureshkumar and S.Mari Arul. They are the fifth seed team and if one
values experience, they could even win the event.
Third seed Hyderabad and Kozhikode the fourth seed also scored 4-0 wins
and the remaining seven rounds are going to be among top teams. Chennai-A
was the team to win by the least 3-1 margin on the day.
Organisers said teams from Karnataka did not come due to the ongoing row
over sharing river water. T.P.M.Mohideen Khan, the Minister for
Environment and Sports, Government of Tamil Nadu made the opening move.
Tamil Film Actor and former MLA D.Napoleon spoke well of chess and also
suggested a move for the Minister to make. D.V.Sundar, the dynamic
Secretary of the AICF also spoke and thanked the Minister for support to
chess. The Minister spoke about how the Government recognised success of
Krishnan Sasikiran at the Asian Games in Doha and presented him a cheque
for Rs.20 lakhs.
Round one: Chennai-A bt Chennai-D 3-1, Chennai-F lost to Chennai-B 0-4,
Hyderabad bt Kadapa-A 4-0, Bangalore-B lost to Kozhikode 0-4, Kanchipuram-A
bt
Chennai-G 4-0, Chennai-H lost to Ahmedabad 0-4, Kanchipuram-B bt Chennai-I
4-0, Chennai-J lost to Mangalore-B 0.5-3.5, Chennai-C bt Chennai-K 4-0,
Chennai-L
lost to Mangalore-A 0-4, Bangalore-A bt Chennai-M 3.5-0.5, Kapada-B lost
to Chennai-E 0-4, Trivallur bt Kanchipuram-C 4-0, Kanchipuram-D 2 - bye.
Reports : -
Day One
Day Two
Day Three
Day Four
Final Day
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Published on : 12th Feb, 2007
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