S. Nitin punished Grandmaster and Railway-teammate Swapnil Dhopade for being a little casual and overestimating his chances in their 37-move second round encounter of the Khadi India National chess championship here on Sunday.
S.L. Narayanan also won with black pieces by handing out a second successive defeat to Himanshu Sharma.
As things stand, Narayanan, Deepan Chakkravarthy and M.R. Lalith Babu lead with 1.5 points.
Pieces in harmony
Though Dhopade expectedly had the control of the central squares in the opening phase, as is expected for the one playing with white pieces against the Kings Indian Defence, it was Nitin whose pieces were in harmony. Surprisingly, Dhopade chose not to castle and marched his king to the queenside for safety. In the meantime, Nitin marshalled his resources better, moved his rooks to the queenside and soon pinned down Dhopade’s king.
Nitin also benefited vastly from Dhopade’s inactive queen-side rook and the queen-rook combination even as the white king came under siege.
Narayanan was happy to castle on the queen’s side once Himanshu opted for the exchange variation of Ruy Lopez. With Himanshu letting his rival develop his pieces in good time, the match looked to be headed in Narayanan’s favour.
The latter’s better-placed rooks on the queenside made a huge difference as one of his pawns reached the final rank before Himanshu had to give up his rook to prevent the pawn to become a ‘queen’. Himanshu gave up after 53 moves.
The results (second round): Swapnil Dhopade (0.5) lost to S. Nitin (1) in 37 moves; P. Shyaam Nikhil (1) drew with M.R. Lalith Babu (1.5) in 26 moves; Himanshu Sharma (0) lost to S.L. Narayanan (1.5) in 53 moves; Debashis Das (1) drew with Deepan Chakkravarthy (1.5) in 62 moves; Arghadip Das (1) drew with Sammed Shete (1) in 25 moves; M. Karthikeyan (1) drew with Aravindh Chithambaram (1) in 30 moves; R. R. Laxman (1) drew with Abhijit Kunte (1) in 27 moves.