Utpal shatters Ketan’s dream

Prathamesh, who had a bad opening in the meet, losing the first two rounds, came back strongly on the top, defeating top seed Chandrashekhar Gokhale on the second board. Meanwhile, a little practice done yesterday by Kiran Panditrao on Joseph D’Souza’s opening set-up, helped the seventh seed win comfortably against the same today.

After five successive wins, Ketan’s progress was stopped by Utpal on the top board. The interior designer blundered in the 13th move after Utpal started the game with French opening. He brought his Knight into action by moving it on f5′ move, instead of playing it safe by mushing the g’ file pawn. Utpal, a first year commerce student from Marathwada Mandal college placed it very carefully. He immediately sacrificed a pawn by bringing it on g6′ and gained a technically winning position.

Ketan, later, went a pawn down and did not get any chance to come back. In the pursuing game, Ketan found his hand tied and had on other opting than to resign. Utpal developed his e7′ pawn so strongly that it posed a direct threat to Ketan’s Knight placed on f8. Ketan was in no position to avoid the danger as, if he would have opted to sacrifice the Knight than it would have been a mate for his King, and if it he would have killed the opponents threatening pawn, then he would have to suffer a heavy material loss.