National Chess C’ships: Sethuraman stops Venkatesh, opens half-point lead

Following this sixth victory, Sethuraman enjoys a half-point lead over Mitrabha Guha and Koustav Chatterjee.

Sethuraman leads the National Championship with 7 points after 8 rounds. | Photo Credit: VELANKANNI RAJ

Displaying his superiority in no small measure, S. P. Sethuraman overpowered fellow Grandmaster M. R. Venkatesh 52 moves to emerge as the leader with seven points from eight rounds of the MPL National chess championship here on Thursday.

Once Venkatesh erred on the 24th move with a bishop retreat, Sethuraman never loosened his grip and prevailed comfortably in an endgame involving the queens and pawns.

Following this sixth victory, Sethuraman enjoys a half-point lead over Mitrabha Guha and Koustav Chatterjee.

Mitrabha, an overnight leader with Sethuraman and Venkatesh, drew with Leon Mendonca in 45 moves, while Koustav ended N. R. Vignesh’s struggle in 56 moves.

Deep Sengupta scored his second successive victory with white pieces after facing Neelotpal Das. Abhijeet Gupta, the leader after the fifth round, avoided a hat-trick of losses in style by beating Audi Ameya.

Another struggling Grandmaster Sandipan Chanda stayed firmly on the recovery course following a second straight victory after needing 75 moves to subdue a lower-rated opponent Yash Bharadia.

Leading results:

EIGHTH ROUND:

M. R. Venkatesh (6) lost to S. P. Sethuraman (7); Leon Mendonca (6) drew with Mitrabha Guha (6.5); Karthik Venkataraman (6) drew with Aronyak Ghosh (6); Koustav Chatterjee (6.5) bt N. R. Vignesh (5.5); Mehar Chinna Reddy (6) drew with P. Iniyan (6); Audi Ameya (5.5) lost to Abhijeet Gupta (6); Ajay Krishna (5.5) drew with N. R. Visakh (5.5); Deep Sengupta (6) bt Neelotpal Das (5); Aradhya Garg (5) lost to L. R. Srihari (6); Anuj Shrivatri (5.5) drew with Subhayan Kundu (5.5); Vedant Panesar (5.5) drew with Mohamed Anees (5.5); N. B. Hari Madhavan (6) bt Sai Vishwesh (5); Yash Bharadia (5) lost to Sandipan Chanda (5.5).