Ravikumar shocks Gokhale

Gokhale, with black pieces, opted for the French Defence but unwisely captured a pawn in the opening itself. That cramped his pieces and allowed Ravikumar some compensation. After the queens were exchanged, Gokhale sought some initiative by sacrificing a rook but in the process overlooked a mating threat from Ravikumar.

In other results, top seed RB Ramesh (2496) defeated SVC Chakravarty in the first board, Krishna Soni fell to Punnuswamy Konguvel in the third board while, Neelotpal Das, winner of the Aurangabad Chess Tournament, defeated Prem Chugh on the fourth board.

Results (1st round)

SVC Chakravarty lost to RB Ramesh; Sandeepan Chanda drew Rajesh Bahadur;Krishna Soni lost to Punnuswamy Konguvel; Neelotpal Das bt Prem Chugh; Ravikumar bt Chandrashekar Gokhale; Lanka Ravi bt Rashmin Pulekar; Prasad Deshmukh lost to Atanu Lahiri; Ravi Hegde bt B Roy Choudhary; SR Patnaik lost to K Murugan; SR Rathod lost to VN Ghate; Tania Sachdev lost to P Mitrakant; Shankar Roy bt KV Anilkumar.

Banned’ players get stay order

Three of the four Karnataka players who are playing in the National B Chess Championships which began here today, needed a stay order from the Karnataka High Court on a “ban” imposed by the Karnataka State Chess Association (KSCA).

The Karnataka state association’s decision to ban the players was taken after the Karnataka Chess Players’ Forum (KCPF) made an official complaint to the State Directorate of Youth Affairs and Sports regarding mismanagement of funds by the KSCA.

Apparently, the players — N Sanjay, Arvind Shastri, Tej Kumar and Shivanand — were never issued an official letter regarding the ban’ and were only informed verballyby B S Somnath, KSCA president. All except Shivanand are playing this tournament.

When the players demanded a copy of the official letter, the KSCA informed them that the All-India Chess Federation (AICF) and the Maharashtra Chess Association (MCA) have been sent the communique.

The ban’ was imposed on the players who finished among the first four in the State Championship and were, in turn, eligible to play in the National B. The KSCA said that those who finished 5-8 in the State Championship would become eligible to play instead of the top four.

The players, lead by KCPF president Rajshekar, sought a stay on the ban and managed to get it on August 14.

The AICF secretary PT Ummer Koya, who was present for the opening round of the National B Championships, said: “The Karnataka High Court has asked us to treat the three players as special permit and we are honoring the court’s order.”