Lalith joins Negi, Thipsay in lead
Rakesh Rao
Monday, Dec 20, 2010
NEW DELHI: With a third straight victory, M.R. Lalith Babu joined Parimarjan Negi and Pravin Thipsay in the lead after 10 rounds of the National Premier chess championship here on Sunday.
After Negi and Thipsay, the two overnight leaders, drew their battle in 27 moves, Babu worked out a 48-move triumph over Deepan Chakkravarthy. The leaders have seven points, half a point more than five nearest challengers.
On a day when most board produced decisive verdicts, sixth seed S. Arun Prasad’s search for victory over defending champion B. Adhiban ended in a 76-move draw after more than five hours.
The result kept the players, along with the victorious trio of top seed G. N. Gopal, Abhijit Kunte and M. R. Venkatesh within striking distance of the leaders.
In Semi Slav, the 18-year-old Lalith was staring at an even battle when Deepan blundered a rook for a bishop. Thereafter, Lalith executed a fine winning plan with the help of an active rook-pair.
Earlier, the Thipsay-Negi game ended the same way as their two previous encounters. Thipsay was impressed by Negi’s strong moves after the theoretical opening phase of their Sicilian Scheveningen game and later admitted having to search hard for the best response.
Negi gave up a central pawn to reach a position where he could have traded his bishop for Thipsay’s rook. But Negi went by his sense of danger and straightaway made a draw-offer which Thipsay readily accepted.
Gopal bounces back
Gopal bounced back from Saturday’s defeat to put it across R.R. Laxman in 42 moves, gaining from an early misjudgment from the latter.
Abhijit Kunte stayed on course of a strong finish after beating fellow-GM S. Kidambi. Venkatesh scored an expected win over G.A. Stany.
Like Kunte, third seed Deep Sengupta was firmly on the road to recovery after beating Neelotpal Das. In a surprise result, former champion P. Konguvel surrendered to young Navin Kanna.
More here.
Special thanks to Jagadish Dube for sending us the story.
AICF Official Bulletin Published.
Three share lead; Lalith beat Deepan
By Gopa Kumar
New Delhi (19 Dec 10):- International Master M R Lalith Babu of Andhra Pradesh defeated Grandmaster Deepan Chakkravarthy in the tenth round to share the lead with overnight joint leaders Praveen Thipsay and Parimarjan Negi in the ongoing REC National Premier Chess Championship here at K R Mangalam World School on Sunday.
The top board battle between two generation Grandmasters Thipsay and Negi in Scheveningen variation of Sicilian defence game ended without decisive in 27 moves while playing white side of semi-slav opening, Laith maneuvered his pieces to good effect in the middle game to garner full point against his Grandmaster rival in 48 moves.
A pack of five players including top seed G N Gopal are now occupying the joint second spot position with six and half points. Playing with white pieces in closed Ruy Lopez opening, Gopal overcame Grandmaster R R Laxman in 41 moves while B Adhiban and Arun Prasad joined the second spot after settling for half point in a long battle that lasted 76 moves of Rubinstein variation of Nimzo-Indian Defence. Former national champion Abhijit Kunte and national challenger champion M R Venkatesh raise their tally to six and half points after beating S Kidambi and G A Stany respectively in the tenth round.
In other important encounters in the tenth round, third seed Grandmaster Deep Sengupta got better off Grandmaster Neelotpal Das while Grandmaster Tejas Bakre signed the peace treaty with Vidit Gujarathi. In a surprising result, Tamilnadu youngster Navin Kanna stunned seasoned International Master P Konguvel.
City based Vaibhav Suri defeated former world junior champion Soumya Swaminathan while Rahul Sangma settled for half point against Railways International Master Saptarshi Roy.
In the eleventh round tomorrow, Negi takes on Lalith Babu and Thipsay paired against Arun Prasad with light colours while Gopal and Kunte will battle it out against Venkatesh and Adhiban respectively with dark colours.