Wins by Women Grandmaster Bhakti Kulkarni and International Master S Vijayalakshmi propelled Air India to an important 2.5-1.5 win over Airports Authority of India on the fourth day of the SBH National Women’s Team Chess Championship at KV Bhaskar Reddy Indoor Stadium on Saturday.
Kulkarni downed WGM Mary Ann Gomes while Vijayalakshmi overcame a fighting WGM Padmini Rout in a long game of 106 moves. Tania Sachdev held Grandmaster D Harika in AI’s fine win. Bharathi’s win over WGM Meenakshi came as a sole consolation for AAI.
AP Race had the better of Goa with a 3.5 to 0.5 win against Goa. In the HCA’s sponsored 33rd men’s National championship, top seeded PSPB was joined by the 9th seeded Tamil Nadu B on the top with 8 match points a piece. The much expected tough fight between Indian Railways ‘B’ and PSPB fizzled out to be one sided with latter winning with 0.5 – 3.5 margin.
Important results: Men: Petroleum Sports Promotion Board (PSPB) bt Indian Railways ‘B’ 3.5-.5 (B Adhiban bt MS Thejkumar; SP Sethuramandrew Hismanshu Sharma; MR Lalith Babu bt Akshat Khamparia; Deep Sengupta bt K Rathnakaran).
Indian Railways ‘A’ drew with Air India 2-2 (Swapnil S Dhopade lost to Swayangus Satyapragyan; RR Laxman drew Tejas Bakre, Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury drew C Ghokhale; Somak Palit bt Rahul Shetty).
Tamil Nadu ‘B’ bt Airports Authoriity of India 2.5-1 (M Vinoth Kumar lost to V Prasanna Vishnu; RA Pradeep Kumar bt GA Stany; Ram S Krishnan bt Swayms Mishra; DS Shashank drew VAV Rajesh).
LIC of India bt Kerala 3.5-.5 (Anup Deshmukh drew OT Anil Kumar; Sriram Jha bt SR Harikrshna, Gajendra Singh bt K Arjun). Andhra Bank bt All India Reseve Bank 2.5-1.5 (Vinay Kumar Matta bt Sukhpal Singh; J Ramakrishna bt Sanjiv Kumar; KV Subrahmanyam drew VG Sthalekar; P Kamalkar lost to Deepak Andukar).