Ramesh squanders GM norm chance

Ramesh squanders GM norm chance
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

AMSTERDAM, AUGUST 20: India's RB Ramesh squandered his excellent chances of earning GM-norm with a meek surrender to Grandmaster Nijboer of The Netherlands in the eighth round of the Lost Boys International Open chess tournament here.

International Master Ramesh (5 points), who needed 1.5 points from two games, lost tamely on a mixed day for Indians. Former Junior National champion Sunderarajan Kidambi and TS Ravi joined Ramesh on five points with wins over W Hendriks and Blokhuis respectively.

In a battle between two GMs, Tregubov scalped Van der Sterren and joined Mikhail Gurevich in the lead on 6.5 points. Ramesh played the Sicilian Pelikan variation as White and the game was still along the known lines when Ramesh inexplicably blundered a pawn with `h4'. He then followed it up with another blunder `f4' to lose another pawn and resigned on the 17th move itself. With this loss Ramesh lost all hopes of a GM norm here.

Ramesh had a performance rating of 2588 before the penultimate round while a performance rating of 2600 at the end of the nine rounds would have given a norm.

TS Ravi had a well-fought win over Blokhuis. It was a Caro-Kann variation and the position was quite drawish after the players entered a double rook and double knight ending.

Ravi offered a draw but Blokhuis refused as he was playing for an IM norm. But Ravi soon won a pawn with some clever moves and in sudden death time control won the game too with few minutes remaining on the clock to move to five points.

Important results (Round eight): GM Gurevich (6.5) drew with GM Piket(6); GM Tregubov (6.5) bt GM Van der Sterren (5.5); GM Ivan Sokolov (6.0) drew with GM Milov (6); IM Van der Werf (5) lost to GM Epishin (6); IM RB Ramesh (5) lost to GM Nijboer (6); IM Saravanan (4.5) bt Backelin (3.5); Blokhuis (4) lost to TS Ravi (5); Hendriks (4) lost to Kidambi (5); Remmel (3) lost to IM Konguvel (4).