Thursday 16 January 2020

Ramakrishna

The ACT Chess Association has been informed of the recent passing of Gogulapati Ramakrishna. 'Rama' as he was usually known, was a long time member of the Belconnen Chess Club, and a former organiser of the Doeberl Cup. He was a former Secretary of the ACT Chess Association, and donated both his time and money to various chess activities in the ACT.
As a player he was quite tough to beat and I considered my first win over him (after at least 5 years of trying), as a real achievement. Indeed it was almost a right of passage for young Belconnen players to defeat him, and plenty of players were unable to pass that test.
In the early years of the Belconnen Chess Club he generously donated money for chess clocks, and purchased the club championship trophy, which is still used to this day. Away from the board he was a Statistician, working for the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
While he stopped serious play in recent years he was still proved a challenge to the new generation of ACT players, as shown by this win over future IM Junta Ikeda.


Ramakrishna,Gogulapati (1659) - Ikeda,Junta (1819) [B22]
ACT-ch Canberra (2), 28.07.2004


1 comment:

MachoM said...

VALE GOGULAPATI RAMAKRISHNA (1953 - 2020)

I read yesterday that this man aren't around us anymore. At my first Australian Open 2001 I met him in the 5. round (2. January 2001) in a sharp - for my standards - and time trouble influenced game. I never met nor saw him after this game.
Hvid: Henrik Mortensen (DK) Sort: Gogulapati Ramakrisna (1765) 1.e4,e6 2.d4,d5 3.Nd2,Nf6 4.e5,Nf6-d7 5.c3,c5 6.f4,Nc6 7.Nd2-f3,Qb6 8.g3,cxd4 9.cxd4,Bb4+ 10.Kf2,f6 11.Kg2,fxe5 12.fxe5,0-0 13.Bd3,g6 14.Bh6!? (Today I would for sure have played this in another way ...) Rf7 15.Ng5,Nd7xe5! 16.Nxf7,Nxf7 17.Bf4,Nxd4 18.Nf3,e5?! 19.Nxe5,Nxe5 20.Bxe5,Bc5 21.Qd2?,Qe6! (AV) 22.Bxd4,Qh3+ 23.Kf2,Bxd4+ 24.Ke1,Bg4 25.Bb5!,Bb6 26.Rf1,a6 27.Qxd5+,Be6 28.Qxb7,Ba5+ 29.Ke2,Bg4+? (Now both players were in time trouble.) 30.Ke3,Qh6+ 31.Rf4,Rd8?/?? 32.Bc4+?/??,Kh8 33.Bd5,Qg5 34.Qf7,Bb6+ 35.Ke4,Bf5+ 36.Kf3,Bc5 37.h4,Qh5+ 38.Kg2,Qe2+ 39.Kh1,Qxb2 40.Re1 (After this move I ran asap to the bathroom for some obvious reasons ... When I returned to the playing hall, I saw my opponent smiling with two arbiters around him. WAS WAR PASSIERT?? Yeah, my opponent had lost on time ...) 1-0. REST IN PEACE.