Sport - Chess   

Six players share lead

By D. Ravi Shankar

Saptarishi Roy Choudary contemplates his move in the National Youth chess tournament in Bangalore on Sunday. — Photo: G.P. Sampath Kumar

BANGALORE July 21. Two gruelling rounds of chess were played in the Adarsh Builders National youth chess tournament here on Sunday. In the evening session the top four boards saw cautious play adopted by the players and ended up in draws. After the seventh round six players again shared the lead. The six players in the joint lead are, Neelotpal Das, Saptarishi Roy Choudary, K. Ratnakaran, Prathamesh Mokal, Prasenjit Dutta and Akshay Raj Kore.

On a day when caution was the key word, Saptarishi Roy Choudary defeated his namesake Saptarishi Roy in the morning session. The game was played on the lines of the Queen's Gambit Declined Cambridge Springs variation. This rarely adopted style of play gives White a starting advantage and by the 20th move, Saptarishi Roy Choudary was clearly on the ascendancy. By the 23rd move Saptarishi Roy Choudary annexed the weak pawn on c6 and then consequently played a natural and flawless game. Saptarishi Roy Choudary continued his assault and went two pawns up and his namesake decided to accept defeat on the 39th move.

In another sixth round game, Prasenjit Dutta of Tripura scored a win over Syed Anwar Shazuli. The latter a former Tamil Nadu junior champion who has participated in a tournament in the United Kingdom played the classical version of the Caro Cann defence. Prasenjit Dutta in a bold and deviant move castled on the king's side and Shazuli made a costly mistake on the 14th move surrendering two pawns carelessly. After that it was easy going for Prasenjit Dutta.

Neelotpal Das played safe in both his matches for the day. On the sixth round Neelotpal offered Prathamesh Mokal a draw by the ninth move which Mokal declined. Four moves later Mokal suggested a draw which Neelotpal readily accepted.

In the seventh round too Neelotpal Das and Saptarishi Roy Choudary agreed to split points by the 28th move.

On the second board in the seventh round, Prathamesh Mokal frittered away a winning chance by handling his end game badly. The game played on the Closed Sicilian variation saw some complications in the middle game, but Prathamesh who manoeuvred into an advantageous position came under time pressure and settled for a draw.

The results: (seventh round):

Neelotpal Das (5.5) drew with Saptarishi Roy Choudary (5.5); K. Ratnakaran (5.5) drew with Prathamesh Mokal (5.5); Valay Parikh (5) drew with Prasenjit Dutta (5.5); Akash Thakur (5) drew with Pankaj Joshi (5); Akshay Raj Kore (5) drew with Himanshu Sharma (5); Sourabh Kherdkar (5) bt K. Vijaykeerthi (4); Syed Anwar Shazuli (4.5) drew with Kruthika Nadig (4.5); Soumitra Mojumdar (4) lost to J. Ramakrishna (5); Saptarishi Roy (5) bt Ganesh Bhat (4); Sashikanth Kotwal (4.5) bt E.P. Nirmal (4.5).

Sixth round: Prathamesh Mokal (5) drew with Neelotpal Das (5); J. Ramakrishna (4) lost to K. Ratnakaran (5); Saptarishi Roy Choudary (5) bt Saptarishi Roy (4); Prasenjit Dutta (5) bt Syed Anwar Shazuli (4) Pankaj Joshi (4.5) bt Vinod Sharma (3.5); Sriram Sarja (3.5) lost to Valay Parikh (4.5); Akshay Raj Kore (4.5) bt Shashikanth Kotwal (3.5); Himanshu Sharma (4.5) bt Navneeth Krishna (3.5); Akash Thakur (4.5) bt Saket Sharma (3.5); K Ramu (3.5) drew with Soumitra Mojumadar (4).

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