White proves to be winning formula

PUNE, April 29: White pieces dominated the first day's proceedings at the PDCA organised Ashok Khare Memorial International rating chess ...

PUNE, April 29: White pieces dominated the first day8217;s proceedings at the PDCA organised Ashok Khare Memorial International rating chess tournament as all the seven players who made first move on their respective boards today went on to win the round with ease.

On the top board at the Kesari hall, top seed Chandrashekhar Gokhale, who completed his second norm for the International Master at the recently concluded Commonwealth Chess tournament at Bikaner, defeated Ketan Khaire.

Ketan who had a weak positioning in the end and was also in time pressure, with eight moves to make in less than a minute, surrendered to the top seed in the 32nd move.

Chandrashekhar Elo 2361 employed the Catalan System opening Nf3, which generally makes it difficult for the opponent to judge what line is white going to play since this move provides a variety of openings. And Ketan also got caught in the web, playing Nbd7 in his second move. This blocked Ketan8217;s Bishop and the other pieces, giving Chandrashekhar a clear edge from the beginning.

According to Chandrashekhar, 8220;Ketan should have played a normal game by moving the c8217; file pawn ahead.8221; However, Chandrashekhar went on winning and exchanging pieces at will, and Ketan seeing no route to escape resigned before his flag could fall.

The second board saw an engrossed battle between Udayan Bapat, who has just made his mark in the game on a professional level and a veteran player International Master Arun Vaidya, who is more into coaching. Vaidya with black did not have a sound opening set-up and could not recover from the early losses.

The veteran, who had won the IM title about 14 years ago, could not stop Udayan8217;s pawn gaining in the 39th move. He resigned in the 48th move, playing for a little over four hours.

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Qualifier Utpal Sasane began his campaign well with an impressive win over Prathamesh Mokal. Meanwhile, another qualifier Abhay Karnataki defeated C Dongre to be among the leaders at the end of first round. Two more qualifiers 8212; Pranav Akolkar and Ravi Behre 8212; have pulled out of the tournament citing academic reasons and therefore Rajesh Sapkal and Amruta Mokal have been promoted in their places, with the latter earning a bye today, while Rajesh Sapkal was defeated by Kiran Panditrao.

Results: Ist Round Chandrashekhar Gokhale 1 bt Ketan Khaire 0; Udayan Bapat 1 bt IM Arun Vaidya 0; Q Abhay Karnataki 1 bt C Dongre 0; Q Abhijit Joshi 1 bt Girish Wagh 0; Joseph D8217;Souza 1 bt Q Sandeep Gohad 0; Q Utpal Sasane 1 bt Prathamesh Mokal 0; Kiran Panditrao 1 bt Q Rajesh Sapkal 0; Q Amruta Mokal 1 bye.