Nigel Short takes sole lead in Commonwalth chess meet

Mumbai, Nov 27 (UNI) Defending champion Nigel Short of England took the sole lead after the eighth round in the Commonwealth Chess Championship 2006, underway at Eskay Resorts here today.

Top-seeded Nigel Short assumed the sole lead but, not before surviving some anxious moment against GM Sandipan Chanda and agreeing to a truce. The English Grandmaster now leads the field with a score of 7 in the field of 168 players and, barring a big upset in the last two rounds, is well in the course for the 2nd successive title.

The other overnight co-leader, IM M R Venkatesh of India succumbed to IM S Vijayalakshmi.

The battle on the top board was vicious in the Queens Gambit's Tarrasch variation with both the players thoroughly versed in the theoretical aspects. Sandipan sacrificed two minor pieces to gain a rook. Nigel was forced to surrender the extra material to stop the attack of Chanda. This simplified the position and both players agreed for a truce after 33 moves.

On the 2nd board, yesterday's co-leader, IM M R Venkatesh started as the favourite against 5-time former national champion WGM and IM S Vijayalakshmi. In a Ruy Lopez opening, Venkatesh with White pieces, launched a blistering King-side attack with a pawn storm.

However, this exposed his King. In a tactical skirmish, Viji won a Pawn to create a counter-attack. In a time scramble, Venkatesh failed to find the correct continuation and was forced to give away material to stop the passed pawn of Viji, who wrapped up the game in style on move 48 to score her 4th consecutive win. Viji now shares joint 2nd spot with GM Sandipan Chanda and IM M R Venkatesh and, will now pose a challenge to GM Nigel Short in the penultimate round.

The 3rd board battle between IM Himanshu Sharma and GM Abhijit Kunte ended in a short 20-move draw with neither player willing to take any risk.

The fight on the 4th board between GM S S Ganguly and Ratnakaran was entertaining for the spectators as both players threw caution to the winds by launching attack on each other's king. Ganguly found a win in 42 moves.

The surprise results on the top boards were the loss of 4 Grandmasters -- Pravin Thipsay, R B Ramesh, Wu Shaobin and Dibyendu Barua -- to their lower rated IMs/untitled players.

Following are the key results of round 8: GM Sandipan Chanda Drew with GM Short Nigel Short; IM Venkatesh M R Lost to IM Vijayalakshmi Subbaraman; IM Himanshu Sharma Drew with GM Kunte Abhijit, GM Ganguly Surya Shekhar Beat Rathnakaran K; GM Deepan Chakkravarthy Beat IM Satyapragyan; IM Prakash G B Beat GM Thipsay Praveen; GM Ramesh R B Lost to Das Arghyadip; Rohit G Lost to GM Neelotpal Das, IM Roy Chowdhury Saptarshi Beat GM Wu Shaobin; GM Barua Dibyendu Lost to IM Sriram Jha; IM Gokhale Chandrashekhar Lost to IM S Kidambi; IM Arun Prasad Lost to Sethuraman S P.

UNI GS MAZ LL MIR RN2204