A second successive top-board victory with the dark pieces brightened Karthik Venkataraman’s prospects of winning the National chess title here on Tuesday.
A day after upstaging Abhijeet Gupta in an unusual finish, Karthik benefited from a dubious rook-for-knight trade-off by country’s latest Grandmaster Koustav Chatterjee on Monday and won in 35 moves.
On a day when the top-four boards saw decisive verdicts, the triumph gave Karthik (9.5 points) a half-point lead ahead of his 13th and final round clash with N. R. Visakh (9). Abhijeet and Sayantan Das are the other two players with 9 points.
Koustav, Aronyak Ghosh, N. B. Hari Madhavan, L. R. Srihari, Mitrabha Guha and P. Shyaamnikhil follow at 8.5 points.
Abhijeet, who plays Sayantan in the final round, needs a victory to challenge for the title. Ahead of the final round, this former champion enjoys the best tie-break score.
Facing Aronyak, Abhijeet capitalized on a weak defence and eventually threatened to capture a knight before the youngster resigned on the 34th move.
Sayantan ended the nine-round unbeaten run of N. B. Hari Madhavan in just 27 moves. After Madhavan’s premature aggression on the kingside, Sayantan launched a measured counter-attack and threatened to gain a knight. Sensing more damage, Madhavan gave up.
Visakh’s superior understanding of an endgame involving a bishop each and pawns came handy in ending Deepan Chakkravarthy’s resistance in 46 moves.
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