AUGUST 31: Surya Shekar Ganguly had a worried look last night when he saw the pairing copy. He was pitted against top seed RB Ramesh.This afternoon, a weak smile decorated his face as he posed for photographs, after he beat Ramesh to win the National B Chess Championships. The 16-year-old is one of the 13 who qualified for next year's National A.The other 12 to qualify are Sandipan Chanda, Rahul Shetty, Neelotpal Das, T S Ravi, Lanka Ravi, Sundararajan Kidambi, Vishal Sareen, Atanu Lahiri, K Murugan, Sriram Jha, Ravi Hegde and the 13-year-old P Harikrishna. Of these, Chanda, Lahiri and Harikrishna are first-timers like Ganguly.Ganguly was in distress because he felt he was not the floating player, one of the eleven in the lead overnight with nine points. But with six players having to play white and five on black, and with Ganguly being the lowest seed on white (No 21), he had to become the floating white.It was a crucial match too. Ganguly needed a draw, Ramesh had to win. From the Sicilian defence,Ramesh had a good compensation after he had sacrificed a pawn. But in the middle game, he allowed an exchange of pieces and then Ganguly struck back. With a deadly combination of queen and two bishops, Ganguly checkmated Ramesh in 41 moves.Ramesh must be ruing the loss, in time trouble, to Vishal Sareen in the 11th round, despite being just one move away from a win. A win then would have made his position safe, going into the final day with 9.5 points.Among the 20 in contention for 13 berths overnight, Chandrashekar Gokhale must consider himself distinctly unlucky. Though he won against N Sudhakar Babu, he finished 14th and was edged out.Hegde and Satyapragyan must have felt a mixture of emotions as they went about their battle. Satyapragyan had a plus from the opening, then his position slipped and horror of horrors, he went down after some more blunders.As soon as he shook hands with Hegde, Satyapragyan clutched his head in disgust and struggled to hold back tears. From a winning position, helost and muffed his chances of qualifying. Satyapragyan played the Grunfeld defence and had a better position from the opening but he never stopped making mistakes and threw away the advantage. In the middle game, Hegde and Satyapragyan had opposite coloured bishops and equal pawns. But Satyapragyan blundered to lose two pawns and lost.THE LUCKY 131 Surya Shekar Ganguly 10 points; 2-13: Sandipan Chanda 9.5 points (73 progressive score); Thirumala Ravi 9.5 (72.5); K Murugan (71.5); Sundararajan Kidambi 9.5 (71); P Harikrishna 9.5 (70.5); Vishal Sareen 9.5 (69); Rahul Shetty 9.5 (69); Atanu Lahiri 9.5 (69); Sriram Jha 9.5 (68.5); Ravi Hegde 9.5 (67.5); Lanka Ravi 9.5 (67.5); Neelotpal Das 9.5 (66.5).RESULTSFinal round: Sandipan Chanda 9.5 drew Rahul Shetty 9.5; Neelotpal Das 9.5 drew TS Ravi 9.5; Lanka Ravi 9.5 drew Sundararajan Kidambi 9.5; Vishal Sareen 9.5 drew Atanu Lahiri 9.5; K Murugan 9.5 drew Sriram Jha 9.5; Surya Shekar Ganguly 10 bt RB Ramesh 8.5; N Sudhakar Babu 8.5 lost toChandrashekar Gokhale 9.5; Ravi Hegde 9.5 bt S Satyapragyan 8.5; Sharad Tilak 9 drew Neeraj Mishra 9; P Harikrishna 9.5 bt Anup Deshmukh 8.5.
