National Team Chess Championships 2023:Day 4

Airports Authority of India snatched the lead with nine match points from the favourites Petroleum Sports Promotion Board at the end of the fifth round of the National Team Chess Championship, organised by Coimbatore District Chess Association and Dr. Mahalingam College of Engineering & Technology at the college campus today. The credit goes to the young international master GB Harshavardhan, who defeated Vaibhav Suri of PSPB. Along with PSPB, the A and B teams of Railway are on the second spot with eight match points each.

With three boards of the match ending in draws, Harshavrdhan tilted the result in favour of Airports Authority of India by his deserving win over GM Vaibhav Suri using his two pawns in a rook ending. The two former national champions B Adhiban of PSPB and Aravindh Chithambaram of AAI repeated their moves to settle for a draw in 27 moves. Karthikeyan Murali and SS Ganguly of PSPB also had to be satisfied with draws.

In the second match, the Railway A team had to split the points with the Tamil Nadu GMs team on all the four boards. Former national champion G Akash agreed for a draw with IM Vignesh NR in 30 moves required for accepting or offering a draw. A similar draw resulted in the game between Aronyak Ghosh of Railway and GM Iniyan P of TN. Having one extra pawn, GM Swapnil Dhopade tried for a win against GM Shyam Sundar in a queen and pawn ending, but the latter defended correctly to force a draw.

The Railway B team rose to the second place, beating the Tamil Nadu C team by a 3 – 1 margin. Former national champion Deepan Chakravarthy suffered the second loss of the tournament at the hands of Senthil Maran of TN. On the lower boards, Telangana was embarrassed by Odisha team by 0 – 4 verdict.

In the women category, the hitherto leader Maharashtra was humbled by the AAI team with 4 – 0 whitewash. They jointly lead the table with the PSPB women team with seven match points each. The latter had a 3.5 – 0.5 victory over the Tamil Nadu A, with the only draw conceded by former national champion Soumya Swaminathan to M. Divyabharathi. The Telanagana women team shares the second place with the Maharashtra team, each having six match points.

Important Results of the Fifth Round (Open)

Women – Round 4