Venkatesh, Chanda in close pursuit of Short

Mumbai, Nov 28 (UNI) Top-seeded and defending champion Nigel Short of England marched on relentlessly for the second successive title of Commonwealth Chess Championship underway here by defeating IM S Vijayalakshmi in the 9th and penultimate round today.

However, the tournament is poised for an interesting and close finish as IM M R Venkatesh and GM Sandipan Chanda, who were holding joint 2nd position, also posted victories over their rivals.

Both are now half a point adrift from Nigel and still harbour the theoretical chances of winning the championship.

Of the two, Venkatesh is having better tie-break and, in fact, he is equal to Nigel Short. He can win the event if he wins his last round against Sandipan and also hope that GM S S Ganguly, who will be facing Nigel Short in the last round, is able to draw the game or, still better, can create an upset.

In an interesting penultimate round today, fierce fight was witnessed on almost all the boards for a decisive finish. On the top board, Nigel Short opted for his favourite Ruy Lopez opening against IM Vijayalakshmi. In an interesting middle-game stage, Viji played a dubious 23rd move, which allowed Nigel to win her Queen by giving a Rook and a minor piece. Viji tried to create a counter-attack with her Rook, two Bishops and a Knight but, in the end Nigel's Queen proved too strong, forcing Viji to resign on move 55.

On the 2nd table, GM Sandipan Chanda showed his excellent fighting qualities and temperament to edge out IM S Kidambi in a near equal position in 65 moves.

It was really a bad day for the Jhas' as IM Sriram Jha, husband of IM S Vijayalakshmi, also suffered defeat at the hands of IM M R Venkatesh from the white side of Queens India's Blumfield Defense gambit. Jha missed very good opportunity to force a win. He was not able to find correct continuation, allowing Venkatesh to re-group and win an exchange. He took full advantage of the back rank weakness of Jha to force win in 65 moves.

Following are the key results of Round 8: GM Nigel Short Beat IM Vijayalakshmi; IM S Kidambi Lost to GM Sandipan Chanda; IM Sriram Jha Lost to IM M R Venkatesh; S P Sethuraman Lost to GM Surya Shekhar Ganguly; GM Abhijit Kunte Beat IM Roy Chowdhury Saptarshi; Arghyadip Das Lost to Deepan Chakkravarthy; GM Neelotpal Das Drew with IM G B Prakash; Gopal G N Drew with IM Himanshu Sharma; GM Rahman Ziaur Drew with WGM R Aarthie; Kamble Vikramaditya Drew with GM Murshed Niaz; WGM Eesha Karavade Beat WGM Swathi Ghate, WGM Tania Sachdev Drew with Lalith Babu M R; GM Praveen Thipsay Beat Adhiban B; Aswin Jayaram Drew with GM Ramesh R B; Gillani Tunveer Lost to IM Abhijeet Gupta; GM Wu Shaobin Beat WGM Nisha Mohota; Praveen Kumar Lost to GM Dibyendu Barua; IM Babu N Sudhakar Drew with IM Arun Prasad.

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