Ganguly maintains sole lead

Grandmaster Surya Shekhar Ganguly of Petroleum Sports Control Board trounced teammate T S Ravi to record his fifth victory in a row and maintain his sole lead on 13 points after the 16th round of the 41st National 'A' Chess Championship in Kozhikode on Sunday.

Ganguly, who beat M Srinivas Rao earlier in the day in round 15, was leading nearest rival Sandipan Chanda by a huge margin of two points. GM Koneru Humpy, who was close to drawing the game with her Andhra teammate G M Hari Krishna, is likely to join Sandipan on the second spot.

The third position was shared by GM Abhijit Kunte (PSPB) who gave an emphatic display of power chess to beat seasoned GM Pravin Thipsay of BSB. Abhijit, on 10.5 points, was likely to have the company of Hari Krishna.

Ganguly was yet again in full swing against Ravi who was up against a Ruy Lopez as black. Positionally inclined as  Ganguly was, he chose a rather safe set-up as white and managed a miniscule advantage. Ravi's position became increasingly difficult to handle once he allowed Ganguly to pressurise his queen side pawn weaknesses and it was soon curtains for him in the minor pieces endgame.

Earlier in the day, Ganguly made most of his active position as black against M Srinivas Rao of AP. The middle game, arising out of an irregular opening, gave Ganguly a miniscule advantage that he used well to come up triumphs.

Abhijit showed resilience in tackling Thipsay who consumed a lot of time in the middle game phase to fall under tremendous time pressure. Here too the opening was a Ruy Lopezx where Thipsay, black, was saddled with a passive position following a slightly erroneous middle game plan.

Guiding his knight to the sixth rank, Abhijit created enough threats against Thipsay and won in the Queen and knight endgame.

Results round 15:
Vishal Sareen (6) lost to P Harikrishna (10);
M R Venkatesh (8.5) beat R B Ramesh  (7.5);
M Srinivas Rao (1.5) lost to S S Ganguly (12);
T S Ravi (5) drew S Kidambi (8);
S Satyapragyan (7) drew S Vikramjit Singh (6.5);
Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury (8.5) lost to Sandipan Chanda (10.5);
Neelotpal Das (9.5) beat Dibyendu Barua (8);
Tejas Bakre (8.5) drew Abhijit Kunte (9.5);
Praveen Thipsay (8.5) beat Roktim Bandhopadhyay (6.5);
Arghyadip Das (6) drew Prathamesh Mokal (7.5);
Suvrajit Saha (6.5 ) drew Sriram Jha (6);
V Hariharan (3) lost to Koneru Humpy (1 0.5).