Kidambi has to wait for final IM norm

Grandmasters Shariyazdanov and Huzman are in the joint lead with 7 points each after the end of the ninth round.

Kidambi, who needed a draw in this round for his IM title, did not take any risk and manouevred his game against Klovans to a draw. However, the arbiter ruled Kidambi was not eligible for the norm as his eighth round opponent Adam Valerian was unrated despite the bulletins and official lists mentioned his (Adam’s) rating as 2291 Elo POINTS.

The arbiter’s contention was that it was Adams’ National rating and not that of Fide though Adam has been seeded 54th here on the basis of that rating.

Kidambi, who has 5.5 points, now needs a win in his next round against IM Chermiev to gain his final IM norm.

Saravanan and Ramesh, who have run neck and neck in the points race, drew their game to jointly move to 6 points.

Playing with white pieces, Saravanan employed an irregular form of Sicilian defence where the pawn structure slightly resembled that of Ruy-Lopez variation.

Ramesh’s game with Bunzman in the last round was adjudged the best match of the day and the Indian won a tournament wrist watch for his performance.

After a complicated middlegame, the queens were exchanged the 20th move. But the pawn structure was completely blocked with neither player having any chance of a breakthrough and truce was signed on the 28th move.

Konguvel applied the same tactics against Bunzmann which his compatriot Ramesh had used to defeat the German IM in the previous round.

Bunzman varied his move early and appeared to obtain sufficient counterplay on the queenside of the French Tarrasch variation but Konguvel sacrificed a pawn to gain initiative on the kingside.

Bunzman then gave back the pawn to enter into a drawn queen and pawn endgame, but blundered by offering his queen for exchange thinking it was winning for him. In fact it was Konguvel who was winning at that time which he finally did on 47th move. Konguvel now has 6 points.

In a tragic turn of events, Ravi, who enjoyed a clear advantage from the opening of Queens Indian, lost to IM Hanke Florian to remain on 4.5 points. Ravi was a pawn up initially but then sacrificed an exchange for an attack.

In the time trouble he missed many chances to go down inthe sudden death time control.

Results (Round nine): GM Shariyazdanov (7) drew with GM Galkin Alexander (6.5), IM Pelletier (6) lost to GM Huzman (7), FM Volokitin (6.5) drew with GM Kempinski (6.5), GM Aurukh (6.5) bt IM Kelecevic (5.5), IM Saravanan (6) drew with IM RB Ramesh (6), IM Konguvel (6) bt IM Bunzmann (4.5), S Kidambi (5.5) drew with GM Klovans (5.5).

SOMERSET: All the three Indian players drew their respective matches in the third round of the British Chess Championship being played here.

Mahesh Chandra playing on board number 10 with white peices played accelerated dragon. He initially fumbled and missed matthew turner’s body language and could not really dominate the game. But in the end Turner’s queen got trapped in the corner which gave Mahesh room to play his minor pieces actively and he forced a draw.

Aarthie Ramaswamy and Koneru Humpy also bagged .5 points each at the end of the third round.

Humpy played with black pieces and opted for Caro-Kann defence against Tan Desmond. Desmond played for equal position so agreed to draw after 24 moves.

Aarthie played an attacking game with white pieces against D Lorin’s Sicilian defence. After some tense moments, in which Aarthie was in a critical position, Lorin offered a draw which she promptly agreed to.