Grandmaster Negi, Nikhil tied with 5 pts each

Panaji, Sep 19 (UNI) Grandmasters Parimarjan Negi and P Shyam Nikhil were tied with five points each at the end of the fifth round of the Monginis 46th National ''B'' Chess Championship, being played at the Damodar Saunsthan, Zambaulim in south Goa.

Among the top seed, Grandmaster Neelotpal Das (ELO 2462) of PSPB) was shocked by B Shivananda (ELO 2328) of Karnataka.

In the Sicilian opening, the Karnataka lad used the Na3 variation to later demolish his opponent in just 32 moves. The other casualty was ninth seeded M S Thejkumar (ELO 2441), who lost to Arjun Tiwari (ELO 2305) of Maharashtra in a long position battle. However, the triple Grandmaster norm holder had no answer to the threat of Tiwari and conceded the point after 62 moves.

A student of Bhatikar High School Nandini Saripalli (ELO 1844) won a long drawn out battle with higher rated Pradip Kumar Choudhary (ELO 2082) of Tripura. In a Colle system, Nandini needed just about 62 moves to win the endgame and pocket the point.

Mohinish Naik, the unrated student defeated Rahul Karnani (ELO 1894) of Rajasthan to cement his chances for a superior initial Fide rating in the January 2009 list. Mohinish used his sharp attacking skills to beat his fancied opponent in 47 moves of a Sicilian Opening.

Goa's Kishore Bandekar fought back from a losing position to beat Vigneshraj Muthuram (ELO 1720) of Tamil Nadu in 62 moves Sicilian Defence game, Ritviz Parab was the the other bright spot for Goa when the unrated youngster beat Kunal Das (ELO 1690) of Tripura in a fierce tactical battle.

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