Three share lead in National team chess

Defending champions and overnight leaders Petroleum Sports Control Board, Indian Railways and Western Railway share the lead with 12.5 points each at the end of the fourth round in 24th national team chess championship, in Nagpur on Wednesday.

Indian Airlines, with 11 points, and Central Revenue Sports Board, with 10.5 points, follow the trio.

PSCB, playing on the top table, added 2.5 points to their overnight total of 10 points.

On top board G M K Sasikiran won comfortably against woman Grandmaster Vijayalakshmi of Airlines.

Playing black in the QGD game, Vijayalakshmi made an error in the opening which Sasikiran exploited and forced her to resign after 25 moves.

In the ruy Lopez game playing black against Tejas Bakre of IA, GM Abhijit Kunte of PSCB won easily in 50 moves.

Facing the Sicilian defence of S Satyapragyan from IA GM norm holder D V Prasad of PSCB exchanged queens early in opening and steered the game to rook and pawn ending. Satyapragyan played the ending accurately and Prasad's extra pawn was insufficent to force a win. Both therefore agreed to split the point.

G B Joshi of IA playing white against IM Saravanan of PSCB opened with his king pawn. In the Pelician defence game Joshi did not allow Saravanan much play in the middle game and steered the game into an ending with one rook, one bishop and pawns on both sides. As the bishops were opposite colours, Saravanan tried to hold the position but had to resign after 55 minutes.

On the second table, Indian Railways (IR) defeated Air Force Sports Control Board (AFSCB) 3.5-1.5 to raise their tally to 12.5 points. The top board game between P D S Girinath of IR and R Upadhyay of Air Force was drawn while on the other boards B T Murlikrishnan, Suvarajit Saha and Saurabh Kherdekar recorded easy victories over their rivals.

Some results of the fourth round:
PSCB (12.5 points) beat Indian Airlines (11 points), Indian Railways (12.5 points) beat Air Force (9.5 points), VCA stalwarts (8.5 points) lost to Western Railways (12.5 points), Central Revenue Sports Board (10.5 points) beat TamilNadu (8 points), Nagpur Chess Academy (president) (10.5 points) beat VCA youth (7.5 points), Chess Trainer Com (10 points) beat Paul Morphy Chess Academy (7.5 points), Fischer Chess Club (7.5 points) lost to RBI Mumbai (9 points), Children Chess Academy (7.5 points) beat Nagpur Chess Academy (senior) 5.5 points), VCA (Sub junior) (8 points) beat Mico Sports (4 points, Gujarat State Chess Association (7 points) beat Nagpur Chess Academy (junior) (3 points), AP (ii) (2 points) lost to NDCA (6 points).