IM Karthikeyan, Negi, Thipsay win games

Panaji, Sep 18 (UNI) International Master and Asian junior champion P Karthikeyan (ELO 2402), Grandmasters Parimarjan Negi and Pravin Thipsay had no difficulties to winning their games and remain on the leaderboard at the end of the third round of the Monginis 46th National 'B' Chess Championship underway at the Damodar Saunsthan Zambaulin in South Goa.

The disarray continued among the top seeds, as second seed International Master R R Laximan (ELO 2498) of Railways lost to unfancied P Maheshwaran (ELO 2148) of Tamil Nadu in 54 moves of a king's Indian defence game.

Laximan, who had made a gradmaster norm in Dubai earlier this year, offered a draw to his opponent when he realised that his position was inferior. Maheshwaran was, however, in mood to relent and played efficiently to claim the biggest scalp so far in the tournament.

The other surprise was the draw game between Grandmaster Neetotpal Das (ELO 2462) of PSCB and youngster Mehar Chinna Reddy (ELO 2239) of Andhra Pradesh. Reddy handled the white side of 44 moves ?? Benoni ??, opened with great flair and finally the gradmaster had to concede the half point.

Goan wonder girls, Ivana Furtado and Bhakti Kulkarni, played excellently to hold their much-fancied opponents to a draw.

Ivana (ELO 1836), a two-time world champion in under-8 category, played a 39-move draw with National team championship board prize winner S Raghuraman (2083) of Tamil Nadu.

National Junior girls champion Bhakti Kulkarni (ELO 2166) added to the cheer in the Goan camp, with former Commonwealth champion and International Master Atanu Lahri (ELO 2338) of LIC.

Unrated Mohinsh Naik of the Cortalim Chess Academy continued his fine show and held experienced Projit Phukan (ELO 2030) to a draw in a difficult endgame.

Results: Anurag Mhamal (ELO 2113) bt M Satvik (ELO 1891) of Karnataka, M Harikrishan (ELO 1750) bt Kuldeep Shankar (unrated) of UP, Kalvin D'Lima (unrated) drew with R Hanumanthan (ELO 1907) of Karnataka, Sukanya Chari of Goa (ELO 1434) bt teammate Nitish Belurkar, Gautam Tari (ELO 1717) bt R K Maheshwari (unrated) of UP, Riya Sawant (ELO 1407) bt Nihal Melwani (unrated), Vasant Naik (ELO 1969) bt M Vivek (ELO 1541) of Tamil Nadu, Niraj Saripalli (ELO 1952) lost to WIM Kiran Manisha Mohanty of Orissa, Suhas Asnodkar (ELO 2031) lost to Vikramjit Singh (ELO 2230) of Andhra Pradesh.

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