Roktim sends Ravi crashing

MUMBAI, August 20: Thirteen-year-old Tania Sachdev gave herself the perfect birthday present -- the scalp of International Master Neeraj ...

MUMBAI, August 20: Thirteen-year-old Tania Sachdev gave herself the perfect birthday present — the scalp of International Master Neeraj Kumar Mishra. That result was the biggest upset of the third round of the National Men’s B Championships here today.

In fact, it has been such a bad start for Mishra in the tournament that he will be wary of facing another teenager here. Yesterday he lost to International Woman Master, 18-year-old Nisha Mohota.

Another big upset of the day was the fall of sixth seed Lanka Ravi to Roktim Bandopadhyay. Nisha had another good day at the Andheri Sports Complex. She held IM Anup Deshmukh. Deshmukh, who had lost to Nisha during the Goodricke tournament, remarked with a smile: “I am improving on my performance against Nisha. Last time I lost, this time I drew.”

On the top board, Top seed RB Ramesh and Avinash Awate drew their game in 70 moves.

Tania, who entered her teens today, faced the Sicilian defence. “I had a good position but he blundered an exchange,” said Taniawho went on to wrap up the game in 43rd move.

From an English opening, Bandhopadhyay had a good position. Bandopadhyay got a firmer grip on the game through a miniscule error in the opening by Ravi. The youngster from Bengal activated his queen-side pawns, won an opponent pawn. Though Ravi faced a difficult position, he could not escape the first time trouble and lost when his flag fell.

Nisha had a slight edge from the opening with Deshmukh having a bad bishop. Nisha, who had a strong knight, kept missing her chances of closing out and the players settled for a draw after 52 moves.

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The Ramesh-Awate game went on the Nimzo Indian lines. Ramesh was getting a piece on the 29th move but made a blunder and in the rook and pawn end-game both drew after 70 moves.

Among the upsets of the day was the defeat of 20th seed IM Sharad Tilak by C Natarajan; 12th seed Shankar Roy’s draw with P Harikrishna and 19th seed, IM Vishaal Sareen being held to a draw by Mumbai youngster RamkrishnaKashelkar.

Results

Third round

Avinash Awate 2.5 drew with RB Ramesh 2.5; Hari Om Sharma 2 lost to Ponnuswamy Konguvel 3; Lanka Ravi 2 lost to Roktim Bandopadhyay 3; Prasanjit Dutta 2 lost to Atanu Lahiri 3; Deepak Andurkar 2 lost to K Murugan 3; Shankar Roy 2.5 drew with P Harikrishna 2.5; Verghese Koshy 3 bt V Hariharan 2; Suvrajit Saha 2.5 drew with D lakshman Rao 2.5; Nisha Mohota 2.5 drew with Anup Deshmukh 2.5; Ramkrishna Kashelkar 2.5 drew with Vishal Sareen 2.5; Sharad Tilak 2 lost to C Natarajan 3; Shashikant Kutwal 2 lost tto Surya Shekar Ganguly 3; Nirav Rajsuba lost to TS Ravi 3; Sunderajan Kidambi 2.5 drew with Syed Anwar Shazuli 2.5; Arif Ali lost to Jayant Gokhale 3.