Aarthie bags first IM norm

Woman Grandmaster Aarthie Ramaswamy completed her first International Master norm while National champion Surya Shekhar Ganguly and Grandmaster Koneru Humpy advanced to joint second position in the ninth round of the second Parsvanath International Chess Championship in Delhi on Tuesday.

Aarthie achieved her first IM norm after she split points with Dinesh Kumar Sharma and the two were at six points apiece in joint fourth position.

With just two rounds to go in the tournament, a group of seven Indians, including defending champion R B Ramesh, GM Dibyendu Barua, IM C S Gokhale, IM Sriram Jha and R Balasubramanium, are sitting pretty in second position with seven points, thus adding pressure on the overnight leaders, now joined by GM Serik Temirbaev of Kazakhstan.

Pavel Kotsur of Kazakhstan, Saidali Iuldachev of Uzbekistan and Temirbaev share the joint lead with 7.5 points each.

While Kotsur agreed for a quick draw with GM Safin Sukhra of Uzbekistan, Iuldachev and Ramesh agreed for a draw on the seventh move.

Manthan Chokshy, C Praveen Kumar and Mohammad Javed of Bangladesh also completed their first IM norms on the fruitful day at the Bapu Samaj Seva Kendra.

Chokshy, a former under-12 British champion, defeated N K Mishra with good counter attacks and tactics. He gained advantage on sacrificing a knight in the 12th move but his opponent overlooked the counter-sacrifice to put Chokshy one pawn-up. He maintained the advantage and won the game.

Javed drew with Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury and C Praveen Kumar signed peace with IM Tejas Bakre to complete the norms while R R Laxman received the honour in the last round itself.

R Balasubramanium also moved closer to his second IM norm and needs only a draw to achieve it.

Ganguly played some brilliant tactical chess against IM D V Prasad to garner the full point.

Playing white, the Kolkata player gave some anxious moments to his opponent in the middle game and after an easy end game reached a theoretical victory.

Humpy, with black, made P Konguvel surrender in 39 moves.