Prasad loses in Asian zonal chess

All the three Indian Grandmasters in the fray recorded comprehensive victories in the first round matches in the Asian Zonal Chess championships which got under way in Colombo on Saturday.

GMs K Sasikiran, Abhijit Kunte and Dibyendu Barua won their respective games without much trouble, but International Master D V Prasad and Saheli Barua suffered reverses.

While Prasad lost to his bete noire Reefat Bin Sattar of Bangladesh in a wild French game, Saheli lost to the younger of the Subburaman siblings Meenakshi, falling for the minority attack on the queenside.

For top seed Sasikiran, it was testing time of his opening repertoire as he played the king pawn opening much to the surprise of his opponent. But Taibur Rahman was up to the task and held his own comfortably in a Closed Sicilian game until the time pressure undid him.

"I just managed to win," was all that India No. 2 Sasikiran said after the game.

Quite unusual of him, but then equally unusual was the presence of both his father and mother among the spectators. It makes a big family of chess players in this 'Island in the sun' as the trio of Baruas, Subburamans and Krishnans make a cheerful party in this event.

For the Pune-based Kunte, it was a routine victory as he hardly exerted and left the rest for the later rounds. It was an usual a quiet win for Kunte over the young Abu Safin Shakil of Bangladesh.

Coming out with equally quick wins were S S Ganguly and Enamul Hossain over Laxman Wijayasurya and D R Peiris respectively.

Interesting games of the day came from the oldest of the participants -- Prasad and Barua.

For Prasad, the beginning was a slip of sorts as his pursuit of a GM norm suffered in the hands of the enterprising Bangladesh IM Reefat Bin Sattar.

Prasad lost the advanced French game in 43 moves. "Prasad's eleventh move allowing 'h5' was a mistake. I almost messed it up in the time pressure, but managed to squeeze the point in a pawn up ending," said a relieved Sattar.

Calcutta-based Barua had his hands full against local star Amarawickrama. In a double edged position, Amarawickrama, a medical practitioner by profession, consumed too much time and fell short by four moves when his flag fell.

It was anybody's game, wherein Barua couldn't make a big headway into the Sri Lankan's original play. But the reduced time control effected here had its victims, like Amarawickrama, who were a little under prepared in the opening.

It was Meenakshi who made news on the distaff side, scoring a fine win over Saheli Barua in a Technical queenside attack. Holding fort till the middle game, Saheli allowed white queen's foray into her territory after which Meenakshi made no mistake. Sensing trouble Saheli went for a kingside encore but was found wanting. Saheli's flag fell when she was two moves short, with a position that wasn't redeemable.

There were two different rook blunders that gave Pallavi Shah and Vijayalakshmi a full point in an advantageous position.

Also finishing on the winning side after the opener were Swati Ghate and Vineta Vijayasurya. It was a time pressure mistake by veteran Rani Hamid of Bangladesh that gave Swati the advantage of a full piece, which she patiently converted to score her first point of the event.