Koshy checks Sasikiran’s winning streak

Sasikiran, who had win four matches in a row, faced Koshy’s pet English Opening formation in the fifth round game. He captured the rival’s pawn on e4 and Koshy pushed his pawn on d4 leaving the former with a backward pawn on d6 and doubled pawns on e-file.

Sasikiran besieged Koshy’s King side after giving back the e pawns and doubling on the f-file. At this point, Sasikiran could have forced a mate on move 31. However, he overlooked it due to worrying time factor. Grandmaster Pravin Thipsay outwitted Neelotpal Das, whose Sicilian defence was not enough to tackle his rival’s King pawn opening. The GM invaded Das’ King side and finished the game with awell-executed sacrificial combination to clinch a full point in 39 moves.

Ramesh was another winnerwith a highly entertaining game against Shankar Roy lasting 31 moves.

Registering his first victory of the tournament, Tejas Bakre upstaged Suvrajit Saha in 36 moves.

Local favourite Anup Deshmukh crashed to another defeat today. In the Nimzo-Indian game against N K Mishra, Deshmukh preferred isolated pawn on d4 and later sacrificed it too. Mishra enjoyed superiority in the complicated middlegame after having an extra pawn. He, however, blundered and Deshmukh had a bishop and knight for Mishra’s rook. Deshmukh failed to mend his ways and gave back the piece overlooking a two-move sequence only to lose the game in 50 moves.

In another game, V Saravanan beat R G Hegde in 26 moves while the other games ended in draws.

Results (5th round): V Koshy (2) drew with K Sasikiran (4.5), S Roy (1) lost to RB Ramesh (4), GB Prakash (2.5) drew with A Kunte (3.5), P Thipsay (3) bt N Das (2.5), RG Hegde (1.5) lost toV Saravanan (3), SK Rathore (2.5) drew with TS Ravi (2.5), A Deshmukh (2) lost to NK Mishra (2.5), T Bakre (2) bt S Saha (2), D V Prasad (2) drew with P Konguvel (2).