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Adhiban and Kore in title clash

Rakesh Rao

Keen battles on for qualifying berths for next National ‘A’

ZAMBAOLIM (Goa): With two junior boys in the title-race and 14 others anxious to fill the 11 qualifying spots for the next National ‘A’ championship, fiercely-fought battles will replace the much-followed practice of quick draws in the final round before the curtain comes down on the Monginis 46th National ’B’ chess championship here on Thursday.

Adhiban holds Thipsay

Monday’s 12th round game saw overnight leader B. Adhiban, with 10 points, move within half-a-point of winning the title after his 36-move draw against Grandmaster Pravin Thipsay.

Akshayraj Kore (9.5), a 20-year-old Engineering student from Pune, stands between Adhiban and the coveted title.

Victory over fourth seeded GM Neelotpal Das was a reward for Kore’s tenacity on this day.

Turning the tables

Kore not only escaped a quick defeat but he also went on to turn the tables on Das.

The result gave Kore a crack at the title.

In the final round, Kore plays white against Adhiban in a game that will decide the title.

Fourteen players — Parimarjan Negi, Thipsay, Sriram Jha, Prathamesh Mokal, Shyam Sundar, S. Satyapragyan, P. Karthikeyan, M. S. Thejkumar, Anup Deshmukh, Saptarshi Roy, Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury, P. Konguvel, S. Meenakshi and Deepan Chakkravarthy — were placed in that order with nine points each, behind Adhiban and Kore.

From this lot, Sundar, Karthikeyan, Thejkumar, Deshmukh, Chowdhury, Konguvel and Deepan made it following their hard-earned victories.

Much before Kore emerged as his closest challenger,

Adhiban had taken a 36-move draw by perpetual checks against Thipsay.

In fact, within a couple of moves of the start, Thipsay made a draw-offer that Adhiban refused just as he had done in the previous round against Jha.

Rash play

In this top-board clash in Ruy Lopez, both players displayed a streak of rash play. Thipsay, knowing well that Adhiban is good in tactical play, chose to avoid complications but could not prevent the teenager from giving up his rook for a minor piece.

Later, Adhiban realized he had missed a winning continuation and changed his plans to take a draw by perpetual checks with the help of queen and bishop.

On the second board, Saptarshi Roy never looked in trouble against top seed Parimarjan Negi and drew in 39 moves.

Negi traded his queen for two rooks but neither player held any significant advantage at any stage of this Ruy Lopez game.

The results: 12th round: B. Adhiban (10) drew with Pravin Thipsay (9); Parimarjan Negi (9) drew with Saptarshi Roy (9); Neelotpal Das (8.5) lost to Akshayraj Kore (9.5); Prathamesh Mokal (9) drew with Sriram Jha (9); S. Meenakshi (9) drew with S. Satyapragyan (9); N. Sanjay (8) lost to Deepan Chakkravarthy (9); Vidit Gujarati (8) lost to M.S. Thejkumar (9).

B.S. Shivananda (8.5) drew with S. P. Sethuraman (8.5); M. Shyam Sundar (9) bt Himanshu Sharma (8); P. Konguvel (9) bt C. Praveen Kumar (8) D.P. Singh (8) lost to Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury (9); P. Karthikeyan (9) bt P. Maheswaran (8).

P. Shyam Nikhil (8) lost to Anup Deshmukh (9); R.R. Laxman (8) drew with Rahul Shetty (8); M.R. Venkatesh (8.5) bt R. Arun Karthik (7.5); Joydeep Dutta (8.5) bt Deep Sengupta (7.5).

T. Murali Krishnan (8.5) bt Ram. S. Krishan (7.5); G.B. Prakash (8.5) bt Prasanna Rao (7.5); Sagar Shah (7.5) lost to Dinesh Sharma (8.5); N. Sudhakar Babu (8.5) bt K.V. Shantharam (7.5); M.R. Lalith Babu (8.5) bt Bhakti Kulkarni (7.5); J. Ramakrishna (8.5); bt Chinmay Kulkarni (7.5); Aswin Jayaram (8) bt L.V. Shivkumar (7.5).

Final round’s top-14 pairings: Kore-Adhiban; Chowdhury-Negi; Deepan-Roy; Thipsay-Karthikeyan; Thej-Mokal; Jha-Meenakshi; Deshmukh-Konguvel; Satyapragyan-Sundar; Das-Babu; Dinesh-Venkatesh;Sethuraman-Lalith; Shivananda-Murali; Ramakrishna-Prakash; Himanshu-Dutta.

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