Kozhikode In Lead
By Arvind Aaron

Exciting things are happening in Kerala chess. Recently they obtained their first IM. Now, Kozhikode, the fourth seeded team is leading the 27-team 10th National Cities Chess Championship with 10.5 points from three rounds. There are five rounds still to go and the Kerala city has to face some formidable opposition in these games.

In the third round, Kozhikode swept Chennai-A by 3-1 with two wins on the white boards. After Laxman-Ratnakaran drew on the top board, O.T.Anilkumar surprised IM R.Balasubramaniam in the second. In the fourth board, Sreekumar was lucky to score for Kozhikode after Vinoth Kumar missed plenty of opportunity in the endgame via a piece blunder.

Kozhikode is in front on 10.5 points is followed by Kanchipuram-A and Hyderabad with ten points. Kanchipuram-A, the defending champions beat second seed Chennai-B with A.Sankar defeating Sai Meera. Sai Meera was in trouble right from the start and her title trouble made things worse. Prakash, Sudhakar Babu and Shantharam only drew for Chennai-B and from sole lead on 8/8 they has to stay behind in the race on 9.5 points.

Hyderabad overcame Ahmedabad with some crucial wins to occupy the joint second place. Clearly hosts Chennai was underperforming but there is enough time still for them to recover in the competition. A close fight is on the cards among the three teams in the front and the two Chennai teams which were defeated in the third round. There is concern for the Chennai-A team as R.Balasubramaniam, the former National B Champion has had two reverses so far.

Round 3: Kanchipuram-A (10) bt Chennai-B (9.5) 2.5-1.5, Chennai-A (8) lost to Kozhikode (10.5) 1-3, Hyderabad (10) bt Ahmedabad (8) 3-1, Trivallur (7) drew Mangalore-B (8.5) 2-2, chennai-C (6.5) drew Mangalore-A (7) 2-2, Bangalore-A (6.5) drew Chennai-E (6.5) 2-2.

Round 2: Chennai-B bt Kanchipuram-B 4-0, Bangalore-A lost to Hyderabad 1-3, Kozhikode bt Chennai-C 3.5-0.5, Chennai-E lost to Kanchipuram-A 0.5-3.5, Ahmedabad bt Trivallur 3-1, Mangalore-B bt Bangalore-A 3-1, Kanchipuram-B lost to Chennai-A 0-4.

Reports : -   Day One     Day Two     Day Three    Day Four   Final Day

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Published on : 15th Feb, 2007