Laxman on top after fourth straight win

By Our Sports Reporter

BANGALORE, DEC. 25. R.R. Laxman of Tamil Nadu took the sole lead with four consecutive wins after his game against K. Lakshminarayan of Kerala was over in 45 moves after round four of the ongoing National under-25 chess championship here on Monday.

One of the most interesting games of the day was between unseeded Preethi Bisoi of Orissa and her Statemate Amaresh Nayak, seeded 19th (Elo rating 2074) in this tournament. Preethi did well to hold the more established rival to a draw.

The two Orissa players have faced off twice before and on both occasions, Amaresh Nayak had established his superiority. On Christmas day, however, it was a different story. Preethi, a law student from Cuttack whose best performance thus far has been the best woman player award at the Global Trust Bank tournament, raised her game a couple of notches. Amaresh Nayak adopted a centre countergame only to see Preethi slowly gaining the upper hand. With time pressure beginning to tell on Amaresh, he was soon a pawn down.

Preethi's big match temperament failed to surface at this stage. From a clear winning position, Preethi failed to press home the advantage and Amaresh finally pulled back a draw. Despite being unable to convert the win, Preethi played creditably to share honours with her Statemate for the first time.

On the top board, Laxman, playing Sicilian defence in response to Lakshman's Richter Rauzer attack, gained the upper hand after a sequence of exchanges. Laxman went into the endgame with the opposite bishop and the king. He was able to push up his pawns on the queenside and was on the verge of queening a pawn when Lakshminarayan accepted defeat on the 45th turn.

The second board was the hardest fought encounter thus far in the tournament. In a match that went to just two minutes short of seven hours, Sathyapragyan finally clinched victory on the 97th move against Preetham Sharma of Capa Academy. Sathyapragyan adopted the Sicilian defence and gained the initial advantage.

However, Preetham Sharma sacrificed a pawn only to gain tremendous compensation. In fact, according to analysts, by the 40th move Preetham had taken the advantage. But he failed to continue in the same vein and got himself into a tight spot. A blunder, where he lost a pawn, pushed him into a corner and he finally lost the battle of attrition.

Preetham, however, tried to push Sathyapragyan into time pressure. But the Indian Airlines-sponsored player knowing full well that only a win would keep him in the reckoning for the title beat the clock and his opponent in 97 moves.

Tuesday will be a rest day. Play will resume on Wednesday with the fifth round action.

The results: K. Lakshminarayan lost to R.R. Laxman; Sathyapragyan bt Preetham Sharma; Pankaj Joshi drew with Akash Thakur; Manish Joshi bt Tej Kumar; Saurabh Kherdekar drew with J.M. Utarid; Shivananda drew with Jagadhish; Ratnakaran bt M. Suraj; P. Rajesh bt J. Megha; Preethi Bisoi drew with Amaresh Nayak; Sunil Rangarajan bt Ramprakash; K.G. Apoorva bt G. Balaji; Ajay Kumar Pande bt N. Santosh Kumar; J. Ramakrishna bt Vijaykeerthi; M. Satyajit lost to Sushanta Sarangi; N. Pramod bt Shushrtha Reddy; T.S. Pradeep bt Imtiaz Wani; V. Raghavendra bt Ankur Dhariwal; G. Praveen Kumar lost to Sunil George; Rachan Sheeba bt Vishal Shah; S. Shreyas lost to Naveenthkrishna; S. Yashas lost to Rohit K. Varma; Sanjay Phillipose lost to Akshay Patel; Sheikh Idu bt G. Rohit; Vishnu Ramnath lost to M. Santosh; Hitesh Vasnawala bt Rajesh; Naimesh Modi bt Dhanajaya and Y.G. Vijendra bt Obaid Ashraf.

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