AHMEDABAD: Even as those on the top three boards chose to tread carefully and drew within minutes into the eighth round, ONGC veterans P. Konguvel and Varugeese Koshy crashed to surprise defeats, in contrasting fashion, at the hands of much lesser experienced rivals like Somak Palit and local favourite Valay Parikh on the frontline tables of the National `B' chess championship here on Wednesday.

With five rounds to go and plenty of contenders for the 30 qualifying berths for the next National `A' championship, the front-runners expectedly took short draws that kept overnight leaders Suvrajit Saha and Lanka Ravi ahead with seven points.

Konguvel, a former National champion, offered a rook for a minor piece in this Centre-counter game after Palit had chosen an irregular variation. However, in the complications that followed, Palit came out stronger in 48 moves. At the adjacent board, Parikh did not allow Koshy any liberties and nailed him in 46 moves.

Joining Vikramaditya Kamble, Palit, Parikh on 6.5 points was the victorious trio of Himanshu Sharma, D. Harika and Prathamesh Mokal.

Quick finishes

Saha and Lanka Ravi signed truce in just nine moves, while Kamble and top seed K. Ratnakaran agreed for a four-move draw, one less than what P.D.S. Girinath and Poobesh Anand played on the third board for a similar result.

In sharp contrasts to these quick draws, International Master R.R. Laxman and Woman Grandmaster Eesha Karavade battled it out for 140 moves spread over five hours in what turned out to the longest game of the championship so far.

While Laxman tried to force a win with the help of a rook and a bishop, Eesha defended accurately with her lone rook. Finally, Eesha pointed out to arbiter Indubhai G. Parmar that the game was a draw since no capture of pawns or pieces was made for the last 50 moves commencing from the after the 89th move. The arbiter upheld Eesha's claim.

On a lower board, young talents K. Priyadharshan and Fenil Shah fought out a draw in 108 moves.

The results (eighth round): Suvrajit Saha (7) drew with Lanka Ravi (7); Vikramaditya Kamble (6.5) drew with K. Ratnakaran (6); P.D.S. Girinath (6) drew with Poobesh Anand (6); P. Konguvel (5.5) lost to Somak Palit (6.5); Valay Parikh (6.5) bt Varugeese Koshy (5.5); R.R. Laxman (6) drew with Eesha Karavade (6); Arjun Tiwari (5.5) lost to Himanshu Sharma (6.5); P. Shyaam Nikhil (6) drew with Saptarshi Roy (6); Ashwin Jayaram (6) drew with Roktim Bandyopadhyay (6); D. Harika (6.5) bt Swapnil Dhopade (5.5); Prathamesh Mokal (6.5) bt T. Purushothaman (5.5); Nassir Wajih (6) drew with Thej Kumar (6); S. Satyapragyan (6) bt M.R. Lalith Babu (5); Deep Sengupta (6) bt Anup Deshmukh (5); M. Shrinivasa Rao (5.5) drew with V. Saravanan (5.5); Gurpreetpal Singh (6) bt B.T. Muralidharan (5); Dinesh Sharma (5) lost to M. Vinoth Kumar (6); M. Vinay Kumar (5.5) drew with R. Balasubramanium (5.5); Saheli Nath (5) lost to Atanu Lahiri (6); B. Adhiban (6) bt Kiran Manisha Mohanty (5); M.B. Muralidharan (5.5) drew with Sohan Phadke (5.5); Sudhir Sinha (6) bt Rahul Shetty (5).

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