Baburin widens lead with another win

BIKANER, APRIL 25: Grandmaster Alexander Baburin of Ireland today consolidated his lead by outplaying Sriram Jha of India in the ninth an...

BIKANER, APRIL 25: Grandmaster Alexander Baburin of Ireland today consolidated his lead by outplaying Sriram Jha of India in the ninth and the penultimate round of the sixth Commonwealth Chess Championship being played at Lallgarh Palace hotel here.

Contrary to all speculations, Atanu Lahiri defeated GM Dibyendu Barua to emerge as clear second at this late stage of the event. The two Indian GMS Barua and Pravin M Thipsay occupy the third spot with 6.5 points each.

Playing with the white pieces Sriram Jha (5.5 points) got a miniscule edge out of the Alekhine defence employed by Baburin (8 points).

An exponent of the system Baburin slowly neutralized his opponents advantage and the game looked like heading for a draw. However Jha did not understand the hidden intricates of the position and slowly landed into an inferior position to finally blunder a pawn which lost him the game.

Lahiri is heading for the title of the Commonwealth champion today adopted the exchange variation of the Queen’s gambitdeclined with white pieces against Barua. The GM exchanged the rocks on the Open King file to reach a slightly inferior Queen and minor pieces endgame a wrong kingside pawn advance by Barua gave Atanu the chance to exchange queens with a huge advantage. Once on top Lahiri played in masterly fashion to get another creditable result under his belt.

C S Gokhale made his second IM norm by outplaying IM R B Ramesh from the white side of a reti opening world under-12 champion Koneru Hampy too made her second IWN-Norn by getting the better of IM N Sudhakar Babu.

WGM norm aspirant Bhagyashree Thipsay was unlucky to miss her second norm today as her opponent Luis Williams of Welsh withdrew from the tournament without informing the arbiters. However she can still make the norm provided she gets a draw against a foreigner tomorrow.

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The top seed G M Anthony Miles also withdrew from the event citing medical reasons.

Results
S R Jha (5.5) lost to Baburin (8), Lahiri (7) bt D Barua (6.5), M Lodhi (5.5)lost to P M Thipsey (6.5), Girinath (6) drew S R Kidambi (6), Konguvel (6) bt S S Ganguly (5), C S Gokhale (6) bt R B Ramesh (5), Harikrishna (5) lost to K Murugan (6), V Goswami (5) lost to V Koshy (6), A Webster (4.5) lost to S Chanda (6), L Williams (4) w/o Bhagyashree T (6), D V Prasad (4.5) lost to Nassir Wagh (5.5), K Humpy (5.5) bt N S Babu (4.5), R G Shetty (4.5) lost to Swati Ghate (5.5).