ONGC forges ahead

By Manuel Aaron

CHENNAI, MARCH 12. Oil & Natural Gas Corporation increased its lead to 2.5 points at the end of the fifth and penultimate round of the CRSB Eleventh National Institutional team chess championship tonight. It now has 16 points. Indian Airlines follows behind with 13.5 points.

In the fourth and fifth rounds played today, ONGC had identical 3-1 victories over Neyveli Lignite Corporation and Indian Bank.

In the fourth round Sasikiran was held to a draw by International Master K. Murugan. But in the evening game, Sasikiran played fluently to down IM N. Sudhakar Babu of Indian Bank. Against the Dutch Defence of Babu, Sasikiran gained the initiative on the queen side by advancing all his pawns. With the black forces tied to the defence of the b7 pawn, white gained a superior position. Sasikiran exchanged queens at the right time to get complete control of the only open file in the game. After that Babu was reduced to shifting his king back and forth and eventually resigned on the 35th move.

On the second table G.B. Prakash was outwitted by former National champion P. Konguvel who played the King's Indian defence. Prakash misplayed his knight to h5 where it got into all kinds of trouble. To get out of it Prakash sacrificed his knight and later got it back through a discovered check. But Konguvel seized the initiative with his two bishops and active king to finish off the game on the 36th move.

Indian Bank's lone point came through K.V. Shantharam's victory over IM Lanka Ravi on the third table.

On the fourth board, Varugeese Koshy outplayed K. Gopalakrishnan.

The fifth round began after a delay of an hour as there was a protest in the fourth round game between Mari Arul (Railways) and Chandrasekar Gokhale (Indian Airlines). The Appeals Committee could be convened only at 3 p.m. when the fifth round was due to start. The Appeals Committee upheld the decision of the Arbiter by voting 3-2.

Standings:

1. ONGC 16; 2. Indian Airlines 13.5; 3-4. CRSB, Southern Railway 12.5; 5. Indian Bank 11.5; 6. ICF 11; 7-8. LIC, NLC 10.5; 9. Major Ports 10; 10. TNEB 8; 11. Canara Bank 7.5; 12. P & T. 7; 13. Income Tax `A' 6; 14. Income Tax `B' 3.5.

The results (round 5):ONGC 3 bt Indian Bank 1; ICF 1.5 lost to Indian Airlines 2.5; Southern Railway 2.5 bt NLC 1.5; TNEB 0 lost to CRSB 4; P & T 1 lost to LIC 3; Income Tax `A' 1.5 lost to Canara Bank 2.5; Major Ports 4 bt Income Tax `B' 0.

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