Sasikiran wins a thriller, retains lead

NAGPUR, April 5: IM Krishnan Sasikiran clinched a thriller against V Saravanan today at the BPCL 36th National A' Chess Championship and...

NAGPUR, April 5: IM Krishnan Sasikiran clinched a thriller against V Saravanan today at the BPCL 36th National A’ Chess Championship and maintained his sole lead with 10 points after the 12th round.

Former National champion Abhijit Kunte clipped Suvarjit Saha’s wings after some faulty exchanges by the latter and stayed on the second spot. R B Ramesh (8.5), who drew against T S Ravi (6), slipped to the third position. G B Prakash (8), who beat Shankar Roy, was the fourth, while GM Pravin Thipsay (7.5), after being held by R G Hegde (4), was pushed down to the fifth place.

In a marathon game of 79 moves, V Saravanan opened with e4′ against Sasikiran. Then followed a Caro-Kann Pannov-Botvinnik attack game in which Saravanan accepted an isolated pawn on d4′. On move 14, Sasikiran allowed his pawns to be doubled on the f-file’, although he had castled on the King-side. With timely action he doubled his rooks on the g-file’ givingSaravanan no chance to attack on the King-side. The latter, therefore,doubled his rooks on the c-file.

Sasikiran utilised the outpost on d5′ with his knight and combining his forces made a fluent transition into the end game, in which he had one rook, one knight and five pawns to Saravanan’s one rook, one bishop and five pawns. Exhibiting admirable technique, Sasikiran forced the rival to resign on the 79th move.

Abhijit Kunte (white) played the English opening against Suvarjit Saha, who unnecessarily exchanged his pawn on c3′ giving Kunte an open b file’. The latter transferred his queen rook to the king-side via the b-file’. Saha added to his rival’s ease when exchange of dark bishop weakened the dark squares in his camp seriously. Kunte pounced upon the opportunity to win the exchange and one pawn. That gave Saha no respite. Kunte bagged a full point ransacking Saha’s king-side.

RB Ramesh (white) and T S Ravi played a Ruy Lopez game. On exchanging the material, they reached an ending with one rook, a minor piece and three pawns with both sides was reached. As theresultant ending was drawish, the players split the point after 40 moves.

Anup Deshmukh’s queen-pawn opening was replied with the Queens Indian Defence by Tejas Bakre. In the first 10 moves, Bakre won a pawn which Deshmukh ignored deliberately. In return for the pawn, Deshmukh got initiative. Bakre made his position more troublesome by capturing another pawn whereafter his rival made a forceful 20th move. Bakre resigned after 15 more moves.

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GM Pravin Thipsay replied R G Hegde’s king pawn opening with his pet Sicilian Defence. Due to no-win position after the 18th move, both players agreed to a draw.

P Konguvel (6.5) beat Verghese Koshy (4) in 50 moves, D V Prasad (6.5) won the game against S K Rathore (4) in 47 moves. N K Mishra (white, 4.5)) and Neelotpal Das (5.5) drew their game through sudden death.

Results (12th round)
N K Mishra (4.5) dr N Das (5.5), R B Ramesh (8.5) dr T S Ravi (6), A Kunte (9) bt S Saha (5.5), V Sarvanan (5.5) lost Sasikiran (10), P Konguvel (6.5) bt V Koshy (4), ADeshmukh (5) bt T Bakre (4.5), D V Prasad (6.5) bt S K Rathore (4), R G Hegde (4) dr P M Thipsay (7.5), G B Prakash (8) bt Shankar Roy (3.5).

Pairings (13th round) Roy-Mishra, Thipsay-Prakash, Rathore-Hegde, Bakre-Prakash, Koshy-Deshmukh, Sasikiran-Konguvel, Saha-Saravanan, Ravi-Kunte, Das-Ramesh.