Thipsay moves up to second post

There was hardly any action today as the top players preferred not to risk their chances of making it to the Indian team. Sasikiran-DV Prasad, Abhijit Kunte-Ramesh, Tejas Bakre-Prakash and V Koshy-RG Hegde games ended in draws. Thipsay, V Saravanan (8.5), P Konguvel (8.5), Anup Deshmukh (6) and SK Rathore (5) beat their respective rivals.

In his drawn game today, top seed Sasikiran opened with d4′ and Prasad played the Queen’s Gambit accepted variation. The players agreed to a draw when an equal position was reached after the 27th move.

Ramesh and Kunte played a 11-move draw, while Prakash and Bakre drew their Caro-Kann set-up gameon the 60th move.

Thipsay, who badly needed a win today, opened with King pawn and NK Mishra opted for the Sicilian Defence. Though Mishra’s pieces were better organised, Thipsay enjoyed an upper hand. Mishra had to resign on the 41st move as he had overlooked a tactical sequence, which cost him a piece and the game also.

Saravanan’s Sicilian Defence did a trick as Neelotpal Das opened with e4′. Gradually, both came under severe time pressure. However, playing at a fast pace, they survived the scare. In the ending, Saravanan capitilised on his extra pawn and forced Das to resign on the 60th move.

TS Ravi’s pet Alapin variation came into force when P Konguvel opted for the Sicilian defence. Desperate to win, Konguvel made an intuitive sacrifice of his knight when Ravi was going through acute time pressure. Konguvel, too, faced dangerous time control, but the flag on Ravi’s clock fell when he was one move short of the required 40. And that added one more point to Konguvel’s tally.

The only local playerin the fray, Deshmukh misplaced Saha’s pieces during the middlegame. Deshmukh won the game on the 30th move when mate on Saha’s king had become inescapable.

SR Rathore and Shankar Roy played a Pirc defence in which the former won a pawn on the 23rd move. Roy recovered the pawn and equalised after eight moves. On his 40th move, he blundered a piece. Rathore won the game on the 53rd move.

Results (15th round):

Sasikiran (11.5) drew with Prasad (8.5), Ramesh (10) drew with A Kunte (10), P Thipsay (10) bt N K Mishra (5.5), Prakash (9.5) drew with T Bakre (6), T S Ravi (6.5) lost to Konguvel (8.5), N Das (7) lost to Sarvanan (8.5), S Saha (6.5) lost to A Deshmukh (6), V Koshy (5.5) drew with R G Hegde (6), S K Rathore (5) bt Shankar Roy (4.5).

Pairing (16th round):

Mishra-Kunte, Saravanan-Ramesh, Konguvel-Das, Deshmukh-Ravi, Prasad-Saha, Hegde-Sasikiran, Prakash-V Koshy, Roy-Bakre, Thipsay-Rathore.