PSCB maintain sole lead

Reigning National champion and two GM norm holder, K Sasikiran had no difficulty against ICF’s C Natarajan on the top board. On the other three boards, ICF did well to hold their strong opponents to draws. ICF’s J Venkatramana, R Balsubramanian and K Gunasekharan held IMs Abhijit Kunte, V Saravanan and D V Prasad respectively. With 1.5 points this outing, ICF raised their tally to 10.5 points and are joint fourth with LIC.

Venus Chess Academy’s 4-0 win over Air Force came through R A Bhave, Pankaj Joshi, A Bartakke and S Kutwal. Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) and Indian Railways, who locked horns on the second table, had a mixed fortune and finished the day with 2-2 scoreline. IM Anup Deshmukh won for LIC, while Gurpreetpal Singh earned a full point for Railways. The other two games were drawn.

Second seed, Bank Sports Board (BSB), defeated Indian Airlines 2.5-1.5. GM Pravin Thipsay and IM SC Sahu won for BSB but IWM S Vijayalakshmi (IA) accounted for IM Ravi Hegde on the fourth board. Rahul Shetty of the Indian Airlines held IM S S Tilak to a draw. Both BSB and IA have 10 points to their credit.

In other matches, Vidarbha Chess Association (VCA) defeated Nagpur Chess Academy-II by 4-0 margin. Anand Patil, Vikrant Chole, Akash Thakur and Y M Shamkuwar won their respective gameas for VCA.

RESULTS (Round points followed by cumulative total): ICF (1.5; 10.5) lost to PSCB (2.5; 12.5); LIC (2; 10.5) drew with Indian Railways (2; 11); BSB (2.5; 10) bt Indian Airlines (1.5; 10); Venus Chess Academy (4; 11.5) bt Air Force (0; 7.5); Maharashtra (1; 8) lost to Nagpur Youth (3; 8.5); Tamil Nadu (3; 8.5) bt Uttar Pradesh (1; 6.5); Gujarat (2.5; 7) bt T Nagar Chess Academy (1.5; 6.5); NCA-II (0; 4.5) lost to VCA (4; 9); NCA-Kids (1.5; 5.5) lost to Gondia (2.5; 5.5); NCA-I (1; 2.5) lost to Champion Chess Academy (3; 3).