Das survives scare

With three rounds to go, the Calcutta lad is followed by TS Ravi (IOC) and N Sanjay (IT) in the race for top honours and the first prize of Rs 55,000.

Das took advantage of white’s weak King side for attack, after the Nimzo Indian opening, but made some minor mistake in the middle game. Nisha got some opening but threw away her chances by selecting a wrong move on the 33rd. This weakened her position. Some defensive lapses cost her two pawns and was faced with a strong King side attack from the black.

Das took the game into queen-pawn ending, being three pawns up. However, Nisha toiled hard towards theend and tried for perpetual checks without success. She resigned on the 59th move with two minutes left on her clock to enter sudden death.

IM and fourth seed Lanka Ravi played an inaccurate game to blunder his rook and lost his queen. This gave back white the advantage and TS Ravi forced Lanka Ravi to resign in the 43rd move.

On the third board, N Sanjay upset win top seed, IM RB Ramesh (5.5). The latter miscalculated the opening (Slav defence) combination and sacrificed a rook and a piece to get an attack on the white’s King. However, he could not get much compensation for his sacrifice and later in the game lost the other rook and bishop to resign on the 20th move. The sixth board too witnessed an upset, when S Satyapragyan defeated thrice Women’s National `A’ champion S Vijayalakshmi on the 41st move, in the Ruy Lopez opening. Viji (Elo 2326) could not recover from her middle game mistake at `f6′ and blundered with her bishop on the 40th move to resign. Viji now has 5.5 points, while Satyapragyan (Elo2278) is placed third with RK Mishra with 6.5 points.

Important 8th round results

IWM Nisha Mohota (WB) 6 lost to Neelotpal Das (GCA) 7.5; TS Ravi (IOC) 7 bt IM Lanka Ravi (ONGC) 6; N Sanjay (IT) 7 bt IM RB Ramesh (IOC) 5.5; SK Rathod (MP) 5.5 lost to RK Mishra (MP) 6.5; GB Joshi (IAL) 5 drew with Shankar Roy (E Rlys) 6; S Satyapragyan (Ori) 6.5 bt IWM S Vijayalakshmi (IAL) 5.5; PDS Girinath (TN) 5 lost to Sandeepan Chanda (GCA) 6; CS Gokhale (IAL) 5.5 drew with R Bandopadhyay (WB) 5.5; Vedant Goswami (Raj) 6 bt Suvrajit Shah 5; IM Sudhakar Babu (IB) 6 bt Mahesh Chandra (TN) 5; P Harikrishna (AP) 6 bt Vishal Sarin (Del) 5; SS Ganguly (GCA) 6 bt TV Karnatakiya 5; Milind Gavande (Mah) 5 lost to Rahul Shetty (IAL) 5.5.