Thipsay in lead

Lalith joins Negi, Thipsay in leadRakesh Rao
Monday, Dec 20, 2010

NEW DELHI: With a third straight victory, M.R. Lalith Babu joined Parimarjan Negi and Pravin Thipsay in the lead after 10 rounds of the National Premier chess championship here on Sunday.

After Negi and Thipsay, the two overnight leaders, drew their battle in 27 moves, Babu worked out a 48-move triumph over Deepan Chakkravarthy. The leaders have seven points, half a point more than five nearest challengers.

On a day when most board produced decisive verdicts, sixth seed S. Arun Prasad's search for victory over defending champion B. Adhiban ended in a 76-move draw after more than five hours.

The result kept the players, along with the victorious trio of top seed G. N. Gopal, Abhijit Kunte and M. R. Venkatesh within striking distance of the leaders.

In Semi Slav, the 18-year-old Lalith was staring at an even battle when Deepan blundered a rook for a bishop. Thereafter, Lalith executed a fine winning plan with the help of an active rook-pair.

Earlier, the Thipsay-Negi game ended the same way as their two previous encounters. Thipsay was impressed by Negi's strong moves after the theoretical opening phase of their Sicilian Scheveningen game and later admitted having to search hard for the best response.

Negi gave up a central pawn to reach a position where he could have traded his bishop for Thipsay's rook. But Negi went by his sense of danger and straightaway made a draw-offer which Thipsay readily accepted.

Gopal bounces back

Gopal bounced back from Saturday's defeat to put it across R.R. Laxman in 42 moves, gaining from an early misjudgment from the latter.
Abhijit Kunte stayed on course of a strong finish after beating fellow-GM S. Kidambi. Venkatesh scored an expected win over G.A. Stany.

Like Kunte, third seed Deep Sengupta was firmly on the road to recovery after beating Neelotpal Das. In a surprise result, former champion P. Konguvel surrendered to young Navin Kanna.

More here.