Humpy suffers first defeat, Sandipan and Ganguly steal lead

Visakhapatnam, Apr 9: Grand Master Sandipan Chanda handed GM Koneru Humpy her first defeat in the ninth round to move up to joint lead at the National ''A'' s Chess Championship here today.

Humpy's upset defeat propelled Sandipan and Ganguly into joint lead with 7.0 points from nine games. Humpy remained at 6.5 points, but has played one game less, as her round of bye is yet to come. Swati Ghate with 6.0 points, emerged the leader in the women's section.

The Sandipan-Humpy match turned out to be a Caro-Kann game.

Holding a slight edge right through, Sandipan gained a crucial point getting past Humpy in a same colour bishop ending.

Double Grand Master Norm holder Deepan Chakkravarthy (7.0) showed remarkable consistency as he outplayed Himanshu Sharma in a Sicilian English attack, popularised by Super Grandmaster Nigel Short. The game lasted just 29 moves. Holding a tight grip on the game right from the start, Deepan used his queen side rook file to battery Himanshu's position. Exchanging his queens to maintain the advantage, Deepan trapped black's starying rook and sewed up the game in his favour.

Defending champion Gran Master Surya Sekhar Ganguly (7.0) came up with a quick technical win over Maharashtra youngster Vikramaditya Kamble. Showing his intent in going for an early kill, Ganguly equalised easily in the Queens Gambit accepted variation, and had white in queenside bind.

The passive play by Kamble helped black's cause, as an extra pawn on the queenside easily clinched the issue, despite a desperate knight sacrifice by Kamble later in the game. The game lasted 47 moves.

In the women's section WGM Swati Ghate leads with 6.0 points followed by WGM Vijayalakshmi at 5.0 points. Today, Swathi came back strongly to win over her state-mate Soumya Swaminathan from the black side of Siclian Scehveningen system. Earlier, Woman Grandmaster Meenakshi found herself among the points as she scored over Alka Das in a Sicilian Pelikan. Caught in a series of threats on both the flanks, Alka erred in the middle game, as she found her rook pinned against the king. The ensuing rook versus bishop ending was easily converted by experienced Meenakshi, who moved to 4.5 points.

Results : Men (Round 9): Arunprasad S (3.5) lost Singh D P (6) Arghyadip Das (4) drew with Saptharshi Roy Chowdhury (5.5) P D S Girinath (2) drew with Lanka Ravi (2.5) V Kamble (3) lost to Ganguly S S (7) Deepan Chakravarthi (7) beat Himanshu Sharma (3) R B Ramesh (4.5) drew with Kidambi S (5) D K Sharma (2.5) drew with Kunte Abhijit (4.5) Sandipan Chanda (5) beat Humpy Koneru (6.5) Thejkumar M S (3.5) drew with Shivanandan B S (3.5) Sriram Jha (2.5) drew with M R Venkatesh (5.5) Abhijeet Gupta (3.5) - Bye (No game) Women (Round 8): Esha Karvade (4) drew Nisha Mohota (3.5) Amruta Mokal (3) lost Harika D (4.5) Alka Das (3) lost to Meenakshi S (4.5) Ishwarya Shobana (4.5) lost Vijayalakshmi S (5) Nimmy George (4.5) drew Aarthie Ramaswamy (3) Ramya Krishna I (3.5) lost Maji Supriya (3) Swati Mohota (3) lost Gokhale Anupama (3.5) Soumya Swaminathan (1) lost to Swathi Ghate (6) Kiran Mohanty (4.5) drew J E Kavitha (3.5) Mary Ann Gomes 4.5 - Bye (no game) UNI