Facile wins for fancied teams

By A. Joseph Antony

VIJAYAWADA, OCT. 24. Petroleum Sports Control Board (PSCB), Bank Sports Board, Indian Airlines and Indian Railways faced little opposition in notching up 4-0 margins in the second round of the Nalanda National team chess championships at the Nalanda Vidya Niketan here on Wednesday.

PSCB's K. Sasikiran employed the Kings Indian defence and on the 14th move, J.V. Ramana of Anitha Chess Academy, who opened the e file prematurely, was forced to concede the Bishop pair to Sasikiran. Exploiting the open e file, the Grandmaster infiltrated with his rook and that ploy proved decisive, since Ramana was forced to give up the exchange. Faced with a mating attack and a pawn down, Ramana gave up the struggle.

Ganguly played the King pawn and Gopal countered with Scandinavian defence. During the opening stage, Gopal deviated from the normal course by advancing his g pawn, thereby weakening the central squares. Ganguly entered the enemy camp with his knight, forcing Gopal to give up castling. When Ganguly opened the centre, the black king was left without shelter and vulnerable. Gopal resigned on the 21st move.

Prasad began with Sicilian Taimanov variation, against which Malleswar erred by playing g4, before black castled. To create a counter-attack, white sacrificed a piece, which was accepted. Prasad's defence was water-tight as he returned the piece at the appropriate time, to break open the kingside. Malleswar Rao, left with the unenviable option of either losing the queen or getting checkmated, threw in the towel on the 25th move.

Ramakrishna employed the Sicilian Dragon variation. After the opening phase was over, the game became very volatile with Ramakrishna sacrificing the exchange thereby creating complications. Konguvel however defended doggedly and broke open the King side by advancing his `h pawn to the fifth rank. Later Konguvel penetrated with his major pieces to the eighth rank that brought things to a close.

J.R.C. Prasad employed the Morra gambit against Sicilian Defence. Thipsay got a huge positional advantage very early in the game, since white made too many moves with his knight. This saw Thipsay go for a kingside offensive. Prasad, unable to thwart Thipsay,s threats, gave up in 25 moves.

Subrahmanyam opted for the Nimzo Indian Defence, but did not come up with the right continuation and got into a cramped position. Sudhakar made full use of the space advantage by rolling his kingside pawns, exerting tremendous pressure on the b1-h7 diagonal. Later, his pawn thrust with f5 fetched him an overwhelming attack. Subrahmanyam lost a piece and the game on the 36th move.

Hegde played the Sicilian defence and his opponent played an irregular variation, which gave black comfortable equality in the opening. Later, Hegde obtained a firm advantage by gaining space in the centre and wound up the game with a tactical combination owing to Srikar's back-rank weakness.

Shantaram (BSB) played the Trompovsky attack and obtained a microscopic advantage. Raj Kumar sacrificed an exchange for a pawn and got sufficient compensation. Later, Shantaram swapped queens to reach a rook versus bishop ending with Raj Kumar having a passed pawn on the sixth rank.

Shantaram blundered on the 34th move with Rd5 when Raj Kumar missed a win in time trouble, giving up his f5 pawn by playing f2. Raj Kumar missed a golden chance of creating an upset by not playing the f4 when the time was ripe, largely due to his inexperience in handling the crisis.

* The results (second round):

Men: Anitha Chess Academy lost to PSCB 0-4 (J.V. Ramana lost to K. Sasikiran, S.S. Ganguly bt K.N. Gopal, J. Malleswar Rao lost to D.V. Prasad, J. Ramakrishna lost to P. Konguvel).

L.V.R. & Sons lost to Bank Sports Board 0-4 (J.R.C. Prasad lost to P.M. Thipsay, J. Subramanyam lost to N. Sudhakar Babu, Srikar lost to Ravi Hegde, Ch. Raj Kumar lost to V. Shantaram).

Indian Railways bt Champions Chess Academy 4-0 (B.T. Muralikrishna bt Ch. Kesavananda Krishna, S. Saha bt M.Y. Raju, S. Mari Arul bt L.V. Sivakumar, Sourav Kherdekar bt D. Sarath Chandra).

Indian Airlines bt Indian Air Force 4-0 (Tejas Bakre bt B.V. Prakash, C.S. Gokhale bt A.K. Verma, S. Satyapragyan bt Satish Kumar T.S., R.G. Shetty bt L.D. Rao).

A.P lost Emmanuel Chess Centre 0-4; TN bt Anupama Chess Academy 4-0; Rotary Club of Vijayawada bt Sarmas Chess Academy 3.5-.5; Gujarat bt A.P. Chess Association 4-0; Guntur bt UKCA `A 2.5-.5; Prakasam bt N.L.M. Chess Academy 2.5-.5; Tirupati bt UKCA `B 3.5-.5; Krishna bt T.Nagar Chess Academy 3.5-.5.

Women: Tamil Nadu bt Champions Chess Academy 3-0 (Safira Shanaz bt B.S. Keerthi, C. Delphine bt Aravinda Lochani, P. Sivakami bt Nadia Nona).

T. Nagar Chess Academy bt A.P. Chess Association 3-0 (K. Laxmi Praneetha bt K. Sindhu, M. Padma bt K. Sasikala, Y. Abigna got w/o).

Kerala Chess Association bt Rotary Club, Vijayawada 2.5-.5 (K. Sandhya bt Durga Bhavani, Sheela drew with Chandrahasa, Aswathi bt Amruthavarshini).

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