Indian Oil team-mates Abhijit Kunte and Mary Ann Gomes drew from their reserves to maintain the winning momentum in the fourth round before joining four other leaders in the National Challengers chess championship here on Tuesday.
Kunte’s experience came handy against the hugely-talented Telangana-lad E. Arjun and he won in 75 moves just after Mary got the better of her good friend Grandmaster Deepan Chakkravarthy in 64 moves in five hours. In fact, Deepan missed a chance to force a draw in the rook-and-pawn ending. Mary seized the opportunity to cash in on her extra pawn. Swapnil Dhopade, Himanshu Sharma, Sammed Shete and S. Nitin were the other leaders with perfect scores.
Of the lot, Shete gained a point after receiving a walkover from an indisposed M. S. Thej Kumar, the ninth seed, who later withdrew from the competition.
Kushagra Mohan, fresh from stunning Grandmaster R. R. Laxman, proved equal to International Master Arghyadip Das and Madhya Pradesh’s youngster Ankit Gajwa held top seed Aravindh Chithambaram, a day after pulling off a creditable draw against second seed S. L. Narayanan.
Upset win
Even as the youngsters continued to punch above their weight, it took the experience of 34-year-old Ram S. Krishan (3.5 points) to cause the biggest upset of the day. The BSNL man accounted for his Chennai-mate, fourth seeded Grandmaster N. Srinath. In an interesting battle lasting 33 moves, Ram came up with precise calculations in several tricky situations. Srinath played more ambitiously and captured a kingside pawn. Sensing his chances of winning, Ram smartly manoeuvred his queen and rook to threaten checkmate. Srinath saw the inevitable and resigned.
The results
Fourth round: Swapnil Dhopade (4) bt C. R. G. Krishna (3); Hemant Sharma (3) lost to Himanshu Sharma (4); Abhijit Kunte (4) bt E. Arjun (3); M. S. Thej Kumar (3) gave a walkover to Sammed Shete (4); Mary Ann Gomes (4) bt Deepan Chakkravarthy (3); Fenil Shah (3.5) drew with Swayams Mishra (3); Chakravarthi Reddy (3) lost to S. Nitin (4); Arghyadip Das (3.5) drew with Kushgra Mohan (3.5); Sameer Kathmale (3) lost to S. L. Narayanan (3.5); Ankit Gajwa (3) drew with Aravindh Chithambaram (3); Ram S. Krishnan (3.5) bt N. Srinath (2.5); Rajesh Nayak (2.5) lost to Debashis Das (3.5); Tejas Bakre (3.5) bt S. Dhananjay (2.5); S. Jayakumaar (3) drew with S. Satyapragyan (3); S. Ravi Teja (3) drew with Anand Nadar (3); Udit Kamdar (3) drew with Padmini Rout (3); Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury (3.5) bt Sachin Malik (2.5); Niraj Saripalli (2.5) lost to Akash Iyer (3.5); Audi Ameya (2.5) lost to V. Pranavananda (3.5); Rahul Singh Soram (3) drew with Shashikant Kutwal (3).
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