Sport - Chess

PSCB, Tamil Nadu retain titles

By Rakesh Rao

The PSCB team (left) and the Tamil Nadu teams which won the men and women's team titles in the National team chess championship at Nagpur on Saturday. PSCB (from left) Abhijit Kunte, Sandipan Canda, R.B. Ramesh, D.V. Prasad and Surya Shekar Ganguly; Tamil Nadu (from left) C.V. Rajalakshmi. T.T. Lakshmi Priya, S. Sujatha and Y. Pratibha. — Photo: R.V. Moorthy

NAGPUR JUNE 8 . Sandipan Chanda signed off in great style, winning all his nine matches, to complete Petroleum Sports Control Board's successful campaign for a record sixth straight triumph in the National team chess championship here on Saturday.

In the final round at the Raisoni Hall here, Sandipan, the young recruit from Oil and Natural Gas Corporation also set an unbreakable individual record in the championship which was played over nine rounds for the first time in 26 editions.

Petroleum posted a 3-1 victory over Tamil Nadu for a winning tally of 27.5 points. Life Insurance Corporation displaced Indian Airlines for the runner-up slot and with it, produced its best ever finish in the competition. LIC also had the satisfaction of winning the top two board prizes through Sriram Jha and Dinesh Kumar Sharma.

On a day when the first three tables produced identical results, LIC got the better of Chesstrainer.com before twice runner-up Airlines also registered a two-point victory margin over Indian Bank.

As a result, the overnight positions of the three top teams and the margin separating them remained the same. Railways, which followed PSCB and Airlines in the last two editions, slipped a rung to finish fourth despite drubbing inexperienced Buddhibal Krida Trust 4-0.

In the women's section, holder Tamil Nadu drew 2-2 with Buddhibal Krida Trust and annexed the title for the third time. Tamil Nadu tallied 20.5 points, one more than Buddhibal. LIC, which had last-round bye, came third with 15.5 points in the seven-team league competition.

For Petroleum, like on Friday, Abhijit Kunte and D. V. Prasad drew early against K. Gunasekharan and Syed Anwar Shazuli. It was once again left to the Kolkata-duo of Surya Shekhar Ganguly and Sandipan to provide the winning difference. With ease, Ganguly dismissed P. Phoobalan while Sandipan took his time to finish the job on hand against Ram S. Krishan. Sandipan also won the fourth-board prize.

The race for the second spot between LIC and Airlines was a close one. Airlines' Chandrashekhar Gokhale and S. Satyapragyan drew with N. Sudhakar Babu and K. V. Shantaram while on the adjacent table, LIC's Gajendra Singh and Vishal Sareen signed truce with Sushant Banerjee and Vikramaditya Kamble. In the meantime, LIC's Dinesh Kumar Sharma got the better of Chesstrainer.com's Valay Parikh just as Airlines' S. Vijayalakshmi defeated Indian Bank's V. Hariharan.

LIC, which still held a half-point lead over Airlines, eventually clinched the runner-up spot when Jha ended the resistance of D. Ravishankar. A little later, Airlines' S. Meenakshi completed her fine run in the championship by beating the experienced K. Gopalakrishnan. Significantly, Meenakshi followed sister Vijayalakshmi's footsteps and recorded her fourth successive victory.

Railways, despite a strong finish at the expense of Buddhibal Krida Trust, fell one point short of Airlines' tally of 24.5. Still, Saptarshi Roy Chaudhury, who won against Akshayraj Kore on the top board, had the satisfaction of remaining unbeaten in the championship with a tally of 6.5 points from nine rounds. Suvrajit Saha, B. T. Muralikrishnan and R. Balasubramanium also won easily.

Emanual Chess Centre justified its fifth seeding by beating Champions Chess Academy 3-1 and aggregated 21.5 points. But the most surprising performance came from Delhi. The 15th seeded team tied for the sixth spot with Chesstrainer.com with 21 points. Today, in the match against Nagpur Chess Academy `A' , Delhi won 3-1. In fact, on the top board, Delhi's Gurpreet Pal Singh blundered a minor piece and lost from a seemingly winning position. Only if the former National junior champion had continued correctly, Delhi would have finished a clear fifth.

Delhi not only finished ahead of several reputed teams like Maharashtra `A', Maharashtra `B' and Tamil Nadu, it also pocketed the reserve board prize with Avinash Sethi scoring 6.5 points from seven matches.

Equally appreciable was the performance of teenaged S. Poobesh Anand of Trichy. He garnered 7.5 points from nine rounds for the third board prize.

The results : Men: Ninth and final round: PSCB (27.5) bt Tamil Nadu (20.5) 3-1; LIC (25) bt Chesstrainer.com (21) 3-1; Indian Airlines (24.5) bt Indian Bank (20) 3-1; Railways (23.5) bt Buddhibal Krida Trust (19) 4-0; Emanual Chess Centre (21.5) bt Champions Chess Academy (19.5) 3-1; Maharashtra `B' (20.5) bt Goodricke National Chess Academy (20) 2.5-1.5; Maharashtra `A' (20.5) bt Uttar Pradesh (19.5); Delhi (21) bt Nagpur Chess Academy `A' (18.5) 3-1; Western Railway (19.5) bt T. Nagar Chess Academy (17.5) 3.5-0.5; Trichy (19.5) bt Paul Morphy (Seniors) (17.5) 3-1; Satara (18) drew with Vidarbha `A' (17.5) 2-2; Vidarbha (Sub-juniors) `A' (18) bt Yavatmal `A' (17) 2.5-1.5; Nagpur (17) drew with Yavatmal `B' (17.5) 2-2; King Chess (18.5) bt Paul Morphy (Juniors) (15.5) 3.5-0.5; West Bengal (18.5) bt Vidarbha `B' (14.5) 4-0; Jammu and Kashmir (17) bt Sachivalaya Gymkhana (15) 2.5-1.5; Gondia Kids (18.5) bt Paul Morphy (Sub-juniors) (8) 4-0; Chennai Chess Academy (15.5) bt Vidarbha (Sub-juniors) `B' (11.5) 2.5-1.5; Bombay Suburban Electric Supply (16.5) bt Vijayawada (7) 4-0; Nagpur Chess Academy (Sub-juniors) bt Bhandara (7) 4-0.

Standings (with points and tie-break score, wherever necessary) : 1. PSCB (27.5 points), 2. LIC (25), 3. Indian Airlines (24.5), 4. Railways (23.5), 5. Emmanual Chess Centre (21.5), 6. Chesstrainer.com (21, 102), 7. Delhi (21, 95), 8. Maharashtra `B' (20.5, 98), 9. Maharashtra `A' (20.5, 97), 10. Tamil Nadu (20.5, 96).

Board Prizes: 1. Sriram Jha (LIC) 8/9; 2. Dinesh Kumar Sharma (LIC) 7.5/9; 3. S. Poobesh Anand (Trichy) 7.5/8; 4. Sandipan Chanda (PSCB) 9/9; 5. Avinash Sethi (Delhi) 6.5/7.

Women: Seventh and final round : Andhra Pradesh (6.5) bt Uttar Pradesh (3) 3-1; Maharashtra (14) bt Bhandara (5) 4-0; Tamil Nadu (20.5) drew with Buddhibal Krida Trust (19.5) 2-2; LIC (15.5) bye.

Standings : 1. Tamil Nadu (20.5), 2. Buddhibal Krida Trust (19.5), 3. LIC (15.5), 4. Maharashtra (14), 5. AP (6.5), 6. Bhandara (5), 7. UP (3). Board Prizes : 1. Swati Ghate (LIC) 5.5/6; Nisha Mohota (LIC) 6/6; 3. C. V. Rajalakshmi (TN) 5.5/6; 4. T. T. Lakshmi Priya (TN) 5.5/6.

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