Ramesh stumbles

MUMBAI, AUG 29: Time dealt a cruel blow to top seed RB Ramesh as he forgot to play his 40th move. When the flag fell, so did his face as ...

MUMBAI, AUG 29: Time dealt a cruel blow to top seed RB Ramesh as he forgot to play his 40th move. When the flag fell, so did his face as from a good position he lost against Vishal Sareen during the 11th round of the National B Chess Championships at the Andheri Sports Complex. That was the dramatic event of the day which otherwise saw plenty of safety play. The top two boards, with four joint leaders playing each other, witnessed draws. Sandipan Chanda and Thirumala Ravi on the top board and Surya Shekar Ganguly with Rahul Shetty on the second board, drew their games.

On the third board, Sareen with white pieces faced a resurgent Ramesh. Sareen faced the classical Sicilian variation. Ramesh slowly ground out Sareen and shattered his queenside and won an exchange 8212; rook for bishop. But just when Ramesh was contemplating his 40th move, the flag fell.

Sareen now shares the lead with Chanda, Ravi, Shetty, Ganguly and Sunderarajan Kidambi, who defeated the dangerous Anup Deshmukh.

The other significantresults were the draw of S Vijayalakshmi with K Murugan. She remains in the second position and in contention for one of the 13 berths for the National A championships.

P Harikrishna, who suffered his first loss yesterday against Ganguly, defeated Verghese Koshy. Atanu Lahiri, who seemed to have lost his way midway through, is another player making a quiet comeback. He won against Dipanjan Das.

Thirteen-year-old Amar Kamath, who had amassed seven points from 10 rounds, suffered a defeat at the hands of Sacchidanand Soman.

Vijayalakshmi and Harikrishna have Neelotpal Das, Sriram Jha, Shekar Sahu, Ravi Hegde, K Murugan, Lanka Ravi, Lahari, Soman, Dinesh Sharma and Roktim Bandhopadhyay for company in the second spot with eight points.

RESULTS

Story continues below this ad

11th round: Sandipan Chanda 8.5 drew Thirumala Ravi 8.5; Surya Shekar Ganguly 8.5 drew Rahul Shetty 8.5; Vishal Sareen 8.5 bt RB Ramesh 7.5; Neelotpal Das 8 drew Sriram Jha 8; Shekar Sahu 8 drew Ravi Hegde 8; K Murugan 8 drew S Vijayalakshmi 8;Sundararajan Kidambi 8.5 bt Anup Deshmukh 7.5; Saurabh Kherdekar 7.5 drew Chandrashekar Gokhale 7.5; Lanka Ravi 8 bt TS Venkatraman 7; Dipanjan Das 7 lost to Atanu Lahiri 8; Verghese Koshy 7 lost to P Harikrishna 8; N Sudhakar Babu 7.5 drew Nassir Wajih 7.5; Sacchidanand Soman 8 bt Amar Kamath 7; Dinesh Sharma 8 bt Pritam Singh 7; M Srinivas Rao 7 lost to Roktim Bandopadhyay 8; Syed Anwar Shazuli 7 drew Tejas Bakre 7; RS Gupta 6.5 lost to Neeraj Mishra 7.5; Sharad Tilak 7.5 bt SK Sharma 6.5; SK Sinha 7 drew Gurpreet Pal Singh 7; D Ravishankar 6.5 lost to S Satyapragyan 7.5; Anupama Gokhale 6.5 lost to Swapan Mitra 7.5; Tejkumar 7.5 bt D Lakshman Rao 6.5; Ramkrishna Kashelkar 7.5 bt C Natarajan 6.5.