Sport - Chess

Victorious Adhiban closest to title

— PHOTO: Rakesh Rao

CLASH OF GENERATIONS: One of the most intriguing match-ups of the day was Parimarjan Negi — at 15, the country’s youngest GM, against the 49-year-old Pravin Thipsay, the oldest.

ZAMBAOLIM (Goa): In the country’s domestic chess, the old order is surely changing. The young guns are firing away while the older players are on the brink of being pushed out of the title-race.

In continuation of the trend seen in the Monginis 46th National ‘B’ chess championship so far, B. Adhiban added one more triumph for youth over experience to emerge as the closest to the coveted title here on Tuesday.

In what turned out to be a virtual title-clash between the two overnight leaders in the 11th round, Tamil Nadu’s 16-year-old Adhiban overpowered 32-year-old Sriram Jha in 57 moves. With two rounds to go, Adhiban has 9.5 points and needs one more point to at least tie for the title, if not win it outright.

Following Adhiban is a nine-player pack comprising Grandmasters Parimarjan Negi, Neelotpal Das and Pravin Thipsay along with Jha, Saptarshi Roy, S. Satyapragyan, S. Meenakshi, Prathamesh Mokal and Akshayraj Kore. Sixteen others are on eight points.

Once again, Adhiban displayed his opening repertoire with black pieces. After choosing to play Petroff Defence in Monday’s draw against Negi, Adhiban shifted to Slav Defence that surprised Jha.

Following a complicated middle-game and a violent sequence of exchanges, Adhiban emerged with a queen for Jha’s rook and knight. Soon the players added a queen each to their resources but Adhiban was not to be denied for long. With two queens at his disposal, he threatened to checkmate Jha. In desperation, the two-time champion sacrificed the rook but soon Adhiban forced an exchange of queens and his rival’s resignation.

Earlier, the first-ever clash between the country’s oldest and the youngest Grandmaster was the shortest seen on the leading boards.

Thipsay, who at 49 is 34 years older than Negi, came prepared to play out a draw in Ruy Lopez.

After rejecting Thipsay’s draw-offer on the 10th move, Negi made a return-offer after the 16th move when he found the position rather “uninteresting.” Thipsay accepted the offer acknowledging some “solid” play from the teenager.

Thirteen-year-old Vidit Gujarati continued his dream outing by holding third-seeded GM Deepan Chakkrvarthy in 25 moves. In the two previous rounds, Vidit defeated veteran International Masters Ravi Hegde and Sekhar Sahu.

The results:

11th round: Sriram Jha (8) lot to B. Adhiban (9.5); Pravin Thipsay (8.5) drew with Parimarjan Negi (8.5); Saptarshi Roy (8.5) drew with P. Konguvel (8); Deepan Chakkravarthy (8) drew with Vidit Gujarati (8).

Dinesh Sharma (7.5) lost to Neelotpal Das (8.5); S. Satyapragyan (8.5) bt N. Sudhakar Babu (7.5); S. Meenakshi (8.5) bt B.T. Murali Krishnan (7.5); M. Shyam Sundar (8) drew with P. Karthikeyan (8); Prasanna Rao (7.5) lost to Akshayraj Kore (8.5); Prathamesh Mokal (8.5) bt J. Ramakrishna (7.5); Ram S. Krishnan (7.5) drew with R.R. Laxman (7.5); M.S. Thejkumar (8) bt Debashis Das (7); Anup Deshmukh (8) bt Aswin Jayaram (7); S. P. Sethuraman (8) bt P. Phoobalan (7); Himanshu Sharma (8) bt Rishipal Singh (7).

Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury (8) bt Imocha Laishram (7); D.P. Singh (8) bt V. Saravanan (7); P. Maheswaran (8) bt Suvrajit Saha (7); Nassir Wajih (7) lost to P. Shyam Nikhil (8); N. Sanjay (8) bt Sayantan Das (7); Chinmay Kulkarni (7.5) drew with M. R. Lalith Babu (7.5); Shreyansh Daklia (7) lost to B. S. Shivananda (8); Praveen Kumar (8) bt Anurag Mhamal (7).