Ganguly, Negi shares joint lead in men’s National ‘A’ Chess
Mangalore, Dec 28 (PTI) Grand Master Surya Shekhar Ganguly moved back into joint lead with GM Parimarjan Negi after scoring an emphatic win over M S Thejkumar in the 46th National ‘A’ Chess Championship here today.
Both Ganguly and Negi have secured seven points at the end of tenth round of the championship.
Ganguly, in white, opted for the Caro Kan Defence and offered a pawn on 17th move. Thejkumar accepted b2 pawn, thereby allowing the defending champion to gain momentum and some positional advantage.
Ganguly, coming back after consecutive draws, was in good nick and even offered a rook around 35th move which was taboo. In the middle game, Ganguly’s two bishops harassed his opponent on both fronts and Thejkumar resigned, feeling the pressure from the passed d and e pawns. The game ended in 46 moves.
Meanwhile, Negi enjoyed a rest day today.International Master (IM) S Satyapragyan and Sriram Jha drew their game quickly in 10 moves from a sort of Blumenfeld gambit.
Jha, after scoring two consecutive wins, decided to split the point, saving his energy for the final stretch. Both Jha and Satyapragyan have five points from 10 rounds.
Grand Master Deepan Chakkravarthy of PSPB outplayed IM M Shyam Sundar of Velammal Institutions, Chennai, in clinical fashion.
Chakkravarthy centralised his Knight and created weakness on his opponent’s king side through f5 pawn sacrifice. Sundar later threw in the towel in 38 moves when faced with inevitable mating attack.
Chakkravarthy joins K Rathnakaran on six points.
PTI
Go Negi!