Anwar, Joshi lead the pack

Vijayawada, March 8: Second seed Syed Anwar Shazuli TN and Manish Joshi MP emerged leaders with four points at the end of the fourth r...

Vijayawada, March 8: Second seed Syed Anwar Shazuli TN and Manish Joshi MP emerged leaders with four points at the end of the fourth round of the ninth Andhra Gymkhana National Youth under-25 chess tournament on Wednesday.

Following the leaders are International Master-elect Dinesh Kumar Sharma LIC and UP8217;s Ajay Pande with 3.5 points each.

On top table, Syed Anwar, playing whites, resorted to D4 against J Ramakrishna AP, who replied with Nf6 in Trampovisky defence. Anwar dominated the middle game, forcing Ramakrishna to resign on the 40th move as he was down by five pawns.

Manish Joshi UP prevailed over Gunasekharan TN in Reti opening closed variation. At the 18th move C5, Joshi got the initiative. Gunasekharan8217;s 30th move was dubious one, enabling Joshi to bounce back, thus forcing Gunasekharan to surrender at the 44th move.

Dinesh Kumar Sharma, with black pieces, outplayed Pranjal Das WB in Ruy Lopez exchange variation while T Nagar Chess Academy8217;s Prassanna and Venus Chess Academy8217;s Pankaj Joshi agreed for a draw.

The day also witnessed two upsets as unrated Ajay Pande defeated Fide-rated G Dinesh Kumar. In another upset, under-12 boys and Asian under-10 runner-up G Rohit outwitted Fide-rated SK Khasim in 44 moves.

Results fourth round: Syed Anwar TN 4 bt J Ramakrishna AP 3, Manish Joshi AP 4 bt Gunasekharan TN 3, Dinesh Kumar Sharma LIC 3.5 bt Pranjal Das WB 2.5, Prasanna TNCA 3 drew Pankaj Joshi venus 3, C Natarajan TN 3 drew Misra Ori 3, Ajay Pande UP 3.5 bt Dinesh Kumar TN 3, M Srinivasa Rao AP 3 bt K S Krishna CAPA 2, Amarnadh AP 3 bt Ch Krishna Rlys 2, Pradeep Pathak UP 3 bt Karthik CAPA 2, LD Rao IAF 2.5 drew Ganesh Bhatt Ker 2.5, P Rajesh TNCA 3 bt K N Kumar EMA 2, Malleswara Rao AP 3 bt N Vinuthna AP 2, Raghvendra Kar 3 bt Baniksmanth WB 2, G Rohit AP 3 bt SK Khasim AP 2, S Satyakam Ori 2 drew Vedadri AP 2, Sai Srinivas AP 2.5 bt D Harika AP 1.5, N Raju AP 2.5 bt Ch Kavitha AP 1, Dev KAran Bhatti Mah 2 bt Mukesh Jain Raj 1, Mukesh Mandoli Raj 2 bt Gururajan IAF 1, Rahul Agarwal Bihar 2 bt Satyanarayana AP 1, Smeery Thakar Hp 1.5 drew Abhinav AP 1.5, Vennala AP 2 bt Jagan Mohan Reddy KAr 1, GN Gopal Ker 2 btGirtija Kumar Chrome 2, Basanta Singh Mani 2 bt Inao Sharma 1, Gaurav Nangia Mah 1 bt Neeraj Sharma Raj 0.5, Srikanth EMA 1.5 bt Naveena AP 0.5, Atul Pareek Raj 1.5 bt Chowdary AP 0.5, Keerthi Rana AP 1 bt Kranti Kiran Chrome 0, Praneeth AP 1 bt Varun SAgar AP 0.