Tags:
Journalism of Courage
MUMBAI, DEC 6: Anup Deshmukh of LIC jumped into the lead with five points as he defeated former National champion, International Master Ponuswamy Konguvel of ONGC in the fifth round of the Young Challengers-organised Independence Cup Chess Tournament being held at the Andheri Sports complex here today.
In a major upset, Grandmaster Pravin Thipsay of Union Bank was humbled by Atanu Lahiri of LIC.
Deshmukh, who finished fifth in the Nationals and represented the country in the recent Chess Olympiad at Elista, played the Queen Pawn and Konguvel replied with the King8217;s Indian Defence. Deshmukh played a few wrong moves but Konguvel failed to punish him, playing a few unsound sacrifices himself of a few exchanges and a pawn. Deshmukh closed out the position and won thereafter.
LIC players are having a gala of time. If Deshmukh is in the lead and Atanu stunned Thipsay, it was young Sriram Jha who joined two others in the second position with 4.5 points.
Top seed Grandmaster Dibyendu Barua was held to a draw,by IM Sudhakar Babu.Points position: Anup Deshmukh 2430 International rating points 8212; 5 points; Sudhakar Babu 2335, Atanu Lahiri 2310 and Sriram Jha 2330 8212; 4.5; Dibyendu Barua 2540, Ponnuswamy Konguvel 2410, V Saravanan 2390, Saptarshi Roy Chowdhary 2190, S M Sinha 2120, Shekar Chandra Sahu 2290, N Sanjay 2285, Arghydip Das 2170, N Neelakantan 2260, SJ Kamath 2240, HM Sharma 2125 8212; 4.
