Satyapragyan keeps slender lead

By Our Sports Reporter

BANGALORE, DEC. 29. With just two rounds to go in the National under-25 chess tournament, Indian Airlines' Satyapragyan maintains a slender half-point lead.

In the seventh round here on Friday, Satyapragyan was held to a draw by Tamil Nadu's P. Rajesh on the top board. The three others in a challenging position are R.R. Laxman, P. Rajesh and Ratnakaran, all with 5.5 points each.

It was a disastrous day for the Karnataka players with all of them crashing to defeat. On the fifth board, Saurabh Kherdekar played the Samish variation to the King's Indian Defence employed by Sunil Rangarajan.

Sunil sacrificed a pawn on the 12th move hoping to be able to launch an attack. But the position became complicated with both players playing an aggressive game. Sunil Rangarajan missed a tactical move on the 22nd and ended up with either the loss of the queen or mate in a few moves. Sunil gave up the game on the 28th move.

The top board was a keenly watched match between P. Rajesh and Satyapragyan. Rajesh played the Sicilian defence to Satyapragyan's Sicilian Paulsen attack. The first 13 moves saw the game progressing according to theory. But on the 15th move digressed from the theoretical game. Rajesh may have gained a slight edge after his Bd4 move on the 20th but after studying the board he offered a draw which Satyapragyan gladly accepted.

On the third board, K. Ratnakaran of Lakshwadeep also crept into second spot defeating B.S. Shivananda in 45 moves. Shivananda played a Philidor opening and wrested a clear advantage mostly on Ratnakaran's listless play. However, he failed to capitalise and instead went into a time pressure game. At one stage Shivananda had to make 20 moves in about two minutes and this clearly rattled him. An error by playing Qc1 to Qf4 gave Ratnakaran the game and Shivananda accepted defeat in 45 moves.

The game on board two was between R.R. Laxman and Preetham Sharma of Capa Academy. Laxman played Dutch defence and by the eighth move quickly castled. Probably after the sixth round error, Laxman has realised the value of castling. Preetham sacrificed a pawn for deveopment on the 24th move after which the game became a little unclear. On the 35th move Laxman faltered playing b5. But luckily for him, Preetham came under time pressure and allowed his game to slip. Laxman was able to queen a pawn and after that Preetham reset his clock to signal defeat.

The results: P. Rajesh (5.5) drew with Satyapragyan (6); R.R. Laxman (5.5) bt Preetham Sharma (5); K. Ratnakaran (5.5) bt Shivananda (4.5); K. Lakshminarayan (4) lost to Pankaj Joshi (5); Saurabh Kherdekar (5) bt Sunil Rangarajan (4); Manish Joshi (5) bt Jonathan Utarid (4); Sunil George (4) lost to Ajay Kumar Pande (5); Akash Thakur (5) bt Ramprakash (4); Tej Kumar (3.5) lost to M. Satyajeet (4.5); J. Ramakrishna (4.5) bt H.D. Jagadish (3.5).

Saurabh Kherdekar deploys his queen into the attack against Sunil Rangarajan in the National under-25 chess tournament in Bangalore on Friday.

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