Rangarajan leads field in chess meet

Pondicherry - Local star L. Rangarajan scalped top seed K. Gunasekaran to lead the field with 7.0 points after the seventh round of the third KACC International FIDE Rating chess tournament (below 2200) here Monday.

Half a point behind the leader was 14-year old Kumaran at 6.5 points. Eight other players are crowded in the 6.0 point bracket.

In the crucial top board game, Rangarajan, playing with white pieces, exploited the weaknesses in higher rated Gunasekaran’s Kann defence. He gained an exchange advantage in the middle and won the game converting his advantage in style.

In another interesting game, Chennai boy B Kumaran played his Ruy Lopez game against Ramakrishna Perumalla of Andhra Pradesh with dynamism. Shuffling his knights and paving way for his queen, Kumaran entered black’s kingside.

Before Ramakrishna could re-group his defences, Kumaran tore through the king’s shelter and sewed up the game with a bishop check. Faced with checkmate and further loss of material, Ramakrishna resigned.

Three more rounds remain to be played in this ten round Swiss event that concludes Tuesday.

Important Results (Round 7): L Rangarajan (Pon) 7 bt K Gunasekaran (TN) 5.5, B Kumaran (TN) bt Ramakrishna Perumalla (AP) 5.5, T S Nanda Kumar (TN) 6 bt R Abdul Azeem (TN) 5, P Elancheralathan (TN) 6 bt M Siddarth (TN) 5, M Vijay Anand (TN) 6 bt S Suresh Krishna (Pon) 5, John George Varughese (Singapore) 4 bt D V Rajarajan (TN) 3.