Four Share lead

Four Share lead
by IA S.Paul Arokia Raj,Chief Arbiter

Three Grandmasters namely Deep Sengupta(PSPB),R.R.Laxman(Railways) and M.ShyamSundar(AAI) and one International Master Himanshu Sharma(Railways) are the joint leaders with 4 points each at the end of the fourth round of the Glocal square 53rd National Challengers chess championship now in progress at the NaivedhyamCelebration centre,Nagpur.Close on the heels of the leaders are fourteen others including five GMs.

On the top table GM Deep Sen Gupta had an effortless victory over Harsha BharathaKoti of Andhra Pradesh in just 21 moves. Playing white against Harsha’s Sicilian defense Deep Sen Gupta created a weakness on black’s king side by opening his f-file.Fearing mating attack Harsha castled on the king side at the most inappropriate time. This helped Deep Sen Gupta to strike a tactical blow with his queen on black’s unguarded d7 square. Black gave up the fight as loss of one his bishops was imminent.

In yet another interesting battle between IM Kathmale Sameer and GM R.R.Laxman the latter made a short work of his opponent by piercing through the white’s h-file with his Queen in a game involving Ruy Lopez.GM ShaymSundar carved out a neat victory over IM Rahul Sangma in 49 moves.

Important Results of the Fourth Round:
1 GM Sengupta Deep 4 1 – 0 3 HarshaBharathakoti
2 GM KarthikeyanMurali 3.5 ½ – ½ 3.5 IM PalitSomak
3 GM ShyamSundar M. 4 1 – 0 3 IM Sangma Rahul
4 IM Rathnakaran K. 3.5 ½ – ½ 3.5 GM Venkatesh M.R.
5 GM Neelotpal Das 3.5 ½ – ½ 3.5 SahooUtkalRanjan
6 IM Kathmale Sameer 3 0 – 1 4 GM Laxman R.R.
7 Lokesh N. 3 0 – 1 4 IM Himanshu Sharma
8 GM LalithBabu M.R. 3½ 1 – 0 3 Iniyan P
9 GusainHimal 2½ 0 – 1 3½ GM DeepanChakkravarthy J.
10 Gurpreet Singh Maras 3 ½ – ½ 3 GM KunteAbhijit
11 ShreyanshDaklia 2½ 0 – 1 3½ IM Swayams Mishra
12 DebashishDutta 2½ 0 – 1 3½ IM SatyapragyanSwayangsu
13 IM AnuragMhamal 3½ 1 – 0 2½ ShaileshDravid
14 IM Sharma Dinesh K. 3 ½ – ½ 3 IM Shetty Rahul
15 FM K. Praneeth Surya 3½ 1 – 0 2½ GajwaAnkit
16 FM Thakur Akash 3½ 1 – 0 2½ NeelashSaha
17 IM SuvrajitSaha 3 ½ – ½ 3 Srijit Paul
18 AradhyaGarg 2½ 0 – 1 3½ IM KulkarniVikramaditya
19 IM Das Arghyadip 3 1 – 0 2 BartakkeAmardeep S.
20 IM Thejkumar M. S. 3 1 – 0 2 FM Rakesh Kumar Jena