Sport

Ganguly joins Bakre in lead

Chennai: Four-time National champion Surya Shekhar Ganguly of Indian Oil handed his petroleum team-mate Deepan Chakkravarthy of Madurai his second defeat in a row to join Tejas Bakre in the lead at the end of the fifth round in the Velammal National ‘A’ chess championship at the M.A.C. Stadium here on Thursday.

Ganguly slayed the dragon with the white pieces in style to join Bakre at the top of the 44-player points table with four points from five rounds.

The third place is shared by A. Kunte, G.N. Gopal, M.S. Thejkumar, M.R. Venkatesh, D. Barua, B. Adhiban and S. Satyapragyan. Eight rounds remain to be played.

Overnight sole leader Bakre played the Benko gambit with the black pieces and had a rook for knight advantage. Kunte’s two pawns and knight against the rook ensured the game was a draw in 44 moves.

In the battle between the two senior Grandmasters of India, Chittagong-born Barua of Kolkata defeated Thipsay of Mumbai in a pawn ending.

Barua had the black king on the run and spotted a pawn majority on the king side to exchange queens and rooks and enter the winning ending.

The only untitled player to remain undefeated so far is M.S. Thejkumar of Mysore. He accepted a draw offer from Gopal of Kerala on the 18th turn.

Realising that Grandmasters rely much on preparation and technique, Thejkumar opted for a surprise Scandinavian defence with the black pieces and it helped him make the comfortable draw.

At the start of this round, Thejkumar had a rating performance of 2709 having beaten the two International Masters and drawn all three Grandmasters.

Bharat Petroleum player Venkatesh of Chennai decided to play it safe despite having won the two previous games and having nothing to lose facing a higher-rated opponent.

Having an extra pawn and possible attack going against the uncastled king, Venkatesh proposed a draw on the 21st move which Negi naturally accepted.

Grand Master Neelotpal Das of Kolkata stretched the ending and paid the price for it.

Sudhakar Babu of Indian Bank, Chennai who is known to have extraordinary endgame skills, handled the black side well to win the rooks ending in 65 long moves.

Babu was the oldest qualifier from the Dindigul National ‘B’ last June.

Important results (round five): A. Kunte 3.5 drew with Tejas Bakre 4, S.S. Ganguly 4 bt Deepan Chakkravarthy 3, G.N. Gopal 3.5 drew with M.S. Thejkumar 3.5, M.R. Venkatesh 3.5 drew with P. Negi 3, D. Barua 3.5 bt P.M. Thipsay 2.5, R.B. Ramesh 2.5 lost to S. Satyapragyan 3.5, Arun Prasad 2.5 lost to B. Adhiban 3.5, Rahul Shetty 3 drew with S.R. Chowdhury 3, N. Das 2 lost to Sudhakar Babu 3, Roktim Bandyopadyay 2.5 drew with Sriram Jha 2.5.

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