Sport - Chess   

Prathamesh, Neelotpal in joint lead

By D. Ravi Shankar

Prathamesh Mokal makes a move in his game against Himanshu Sharma in the National Youth chess tournament in Bangalore on Saturday. — Photo: K. Bhagya Prakash

BANGALORE July 20. Prathamesh Mokal and Neelotpal Das emerged joint leaders in the National youth chess tournament after the end of the fifth round of the 11-round meet with 4.5 points each.

Neelotpal Das playing black defeated Soumitra Mojumdar while Prathamesh, also playing black, defeated Himanshu Sharma.

On the top board, Soumitra opened with a d4 to which Neelotpal responded with the Nimzo Indian Defence. The early game saw an equalised position.

Neelotpal began to mount an attack on the queen's side and with Soumitra erring on the 21st move he went a pawn up. Soumitra forced a queen exchange on the 25th move hoping that a draw would ensue but soon lapsed into time pressure. Soumitra was soon two pawns down and tipped over his king on the 44th move.

On the second board Himanshu, who had held Neelotpal to a draw on the fourth round, lost to Prathamesh in a Sicilian Paulsen variation. Though Himanshu had Prathamesh in a Moroczy bind, the latter was able to move around and free his pieces.

Prathamesh sacrificed his rook for a bishop but ended up with a menacing bishop pair directed towards the king. Himanshu slipped into severe time pressure and Prathamesh was able to gain two pieces for his rook. In a protracted end game Prathamesh was able to clinch a win in 75 moves.

On the sixth board J. Ramakrishna from Andhra Pradesh came up with yet another consistent performance to defeat Vijaykeerthi from Mysore.

The game got converted into a Sicilian Alapin and Vijaykeerthi gave away his bishop early to put Ramakrishna in a stronger position. Retaining his king in the centre, Ramakrishna launched a King Side attack.

Vijaykeerthi committed a grave error putting his queen in line with another piece only to lose it on the 23rd move. Thereafter it was plain sailing for Ramakrishna.

The results: Soumitra Mojumdar (3.5) lost to Neelotpal Das (4.5); Himanshu Sharma (3.5) lost to Prathamesh Mokal (4.5); K. Ratnakaran (4) drew with Prasenjit Dutta (4); Pankaj Joshi (3.5) drew with Saptarishi Roy Choudary (4); Syed Anwar Shazuli (4) beat K. Ramu (3); K. Vijaykeerthi (3) lost to J. Ramakrishna (4); Sriram Sarja (3.5) drew with Akash Thakur (3.5); Kruthika Nadig (3) lost to Saptarishi Roy (4); Vinod Sharma (3.5) bt Harshal Deshpande (3); Sourabh Kherdekar (3) drew with Ganesh Bhat (3).

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