Durai shocks top seed Rana

MUMBAI, December 12: Top seed Rohit Singh Rana was defeated by unseeded but experienced R Durai in the Senior Division chess tournament tha...

MUMBAI, December 12: Top seed Rohit Singh Rana was defeated by unseeded but experienced R Durai in the Senior Division chess tournament that commenced today, organised by the Bombay Chess Association at the Zandu Pharmaceutical Works Canteen, Sayani Road.

In the Sicilian Defence/Boleslavsky Variation game, Rana, playing with white pieces, made a weak move on his 18th turn. He played g2-g3 when his king was uncastled. Durai immediately attacked the white rook on a-1 square by his queen. Rana consumed a lot of time and lost one pawn when Durai did not give any chance for initiative to the top seed. Ultimately, Rana lost on time when he made only 29 moves in the allotted time of 90 minutes. In this event, a player has to make the first 30 moves in 90 minutes.

Fourth seed M Srinath also went down to unseeded Bharat Patel in the Queen’s Gambit game. Srinath, playing with black pieces, made wrong exchanges of minor pieces in the early opening and lost his castling right when Patel gave a check to black king on the 13th move. Srinath’s king remained on f-8 square and king-rook on h-8 square. Srinath could not make any improvement in his position and lost the game in 26 moves.

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Second seed Subhas Padenkar, playing with black pieces against Prasad Narvekar, took full advantage of whites wasted moves in the early opening. Moreover, Narvekar lost a piece on 22nd move. Afterwards, Pednekar won with ease in 41 moves.

Third seed Saumil Desai played the Ray Lopez game against Mangesh Patel. In a king’s side attack with queen and knight, Desai grabbed two pawns, exchanged queens and other minor pieces and won the game in 53 moves.

Fifth seed Subhash Honmurgi of Voltas punished Rajeshwar Vadula’s faulty play in the opening and checkmated black king in 19 moves. Paresh Gandhi, seeded six, was lucky to score over Sachin Bansode. In the end game, Bansode, who was a bishop up, blundered his bishop in the sudden death session when he was in acute time trouble.

Nitin Nawar and Cyrus Irani prevailed over Milind Nagare and Yatin Kumanaker respectively, while M Sudarshan and Ganesh Bhilare defeated Venugopal and Raj Bhalla respectively. Junior college students Abhijit Bhurke and Janvion Rodrigues also won their games against Ramprasad and Abhijit Joshi respectively.

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School boy Dravaspe Homavazir played a blitz game against his senior rival VP Roshit in a losing position. When both players were in acute time trouble in sudden death session, Roshit mishandled the position and allowed Homavazir to win the game. Other school students to win today’s first round games are Gridhar Adhikar, Raj Parakh and Kartik V who defeated Amol Golam, Depak Sagar and Anil Arora respectively. With white pieces, Amey Karandikar and Nikhil Bhat prevailed over Kiran Kamble and Hansal Savla respectively.