Favourites Petroleum Sports Promotion Board (PSPB) survived a big scare before eking out a 2.5-1.5 win over a valiant LIC of India in the third round match of the HCA sponsored 33rd National Men Team Chess championship at KVB Reddy Indoor Stadium on Friday.
The highlight of the close match was the shocking defeat of GM Abhijeet Gupta of PSPB at the hands of IM Anup Deshmukh of LIC on the first table. Gupta adopted Samish variation against the Kings India of Deshmukh and was busy occupying the “a” file. Deshmukh was unperturbed by the action and manoeuvred his knights around White’s king and won an exchange on the 28th move.
A periodical exchange, simplified Deshmukh’s work and Gupta resigned on the 43rd move when his Queen was about to get trapped. Six teams are leading with 6 match points at the end of the third round.
At the end of third round Airports Authority of India and Air India are jointly leading the SBH 11th National Women Team Chess Championship. In an interesting tussle on the top board between AAI and PSPB, the former routed the oil team 3.5 to 0.5 with Nisha earning the sole consolation for PSPB.
Playing her first game, GM D Harika won comfortably against Rucha Pujari from the white side of Catalan opening. In a closed formation Rucha’s b8 knight joined the party late allowing Harika, the World Chp semifinalist, to promote the “b” pawn. A tactical deploy in the end won a knight for the white forcing resignation of Rucha in 57 moves.
Results (3rd round): Men: Petroleum Sports Promotion Board bt LIC of India 2.5-1.5 (Abhijeet Gupta lost to Anup Deshmukh; B Adhiban bt Sriram Jha; SP Sethuraman bt Atanu Lahiri; MR Lalith Babu drew with K Dinesh Sharma).
Indian Railways ‘A’ bt Tamil Nadu ‘A’ 35-1.5 (Swapnil S Dhopade bt MV Lakshmi Narayana; Arghyadip drew with TV Navin Kumar; Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury bt B Kumarn; Somak Palit bt NR Visakh). Airports Authority of India bt Maharashtra 3 -1 (Vishnu Prasanna drew Sagar Shah; GA Stany bt Atul Dahale; Swamys Mishra bt SohanPhadke; S Nitin drew S Amardeep Bartakke).
Indian Railways ‘B’ bt Cyber Chess Academy 3.5-.5 (Himanshu Sharma bt Deepak Katiyar; Akshat Khamparia bt V Karthik; K Rathnakaran drew with M Surya Narayana; Saptrshi Roy bt Raja Rithvik); Air India bt Indian Bank 3.5-5 (S Satyapragyan bt N Sudhakar Babu; Tejas Bakre drew GB Prakash; C Gokhale bt KV Shantaram; Rahul Shetty bt K Gopalkrishnan).
Women: Airport Authority of India bt PSPB 3.5-.5 (D Harika bt Rucha Pujari; Mary Ann Gomes drew with Nisha Mohota; Padmini Rout bt Soumya Swaminathan; R Bharathi bt Catherina Michelle).
Air India bt Goa (T Sachdev bt Ditee A Prabhuganokar; Bhakti Kulkrani bt K Fernandes; Meenakshi bt Aishwarya Thorat; Aarthie drew Gauri Keshav Hadkonkar).
AP Race bt Punjab 4-0 (B Pratyusha bt G Kaur; C Sahajasri bt R Kaur; A Kavya bt Malika Handa; V Toshali bt A Kaur Kang).