As mentioned in our previous report, there are only three teams with a realistic chance to win the inter-unit PSPB championship 2017. The first two rounds of the event were pretty normal as ONGC (Sasi, Vidit), BPCL (Hari, Abhijeet) and IOCL (Adhiban, Ganguly) played with lower rated teams. The real fun began from round three onwards when the big stars started to face off against each other. These are the results of round 3:
Results of round 3
| Round 3 on 2017/12/21 at 10:00 am |
| No. | Team | Team | Res. | : | Res. |
| 1 | ONGC-A | BPCL | 3 | : | 1 |
| 2 | IOCL-A | MRPL | 4 | : | 0 |
| 3 | OIL-INDIA_B | IOCL-B | 0 | : | 4 |
| 4 | ONGC-B | EIL | 3½ | : | ½ |
| 5 | HPCL-B | OIL-INDIA_A | ½ | : | 3½ |
| 6 | IOCL(AOD)-A | HPCL-A | 1 | : | 3 |
| 7 | IOCL(AOD)-B | NRL | 3 | : | 1 |
The main match of the third round was ONGC-A taking on BPCL. This is how the pairings looked:
| Bo. | 1 | ONGC-A | Rtg | - | 2 | BPCL | Rtg | 3 : 1 |
| 1.1 | GM | | 2680 | - | GM | | 2744 | ½ - ½ |
| 1.2 | GM | | 2715 | - | GM | | 2593 | ½ - ½ |
| 1.3 | GM | | 2646 | - | GM | | 2542 | 1 - 0 |
| 1.4 | GM | | 2501 | - | GM | | 2610 | 1 - 0 |
On top board Sasikiran could not get throught the defences of Harikrishna and the game ended in a draw| Photo: IA Vasanth B.H
The game between Vidit and Gopal on board two also ended in a draw. However, the real damage was done by Sethuraman and Debashis Das on boards three and four. Sethu beat Vaibhav Suri and Debashis was able to defeat Abhijeet Gupta. In this team competition each and every mistake that is made pushes you down with no chance to correct the situation. For BPCL a loss to ONGC means that their chances of winning the title are close to naught.
Results of round 4
| Round 4 on 2017/12/21 at 03:00 pm |
| No. | Team | Team | Res. | : | Res. |
| 1 | IOCL-A | ONGC-A | 2 | : | 2 |
| 2 | BPCL | OIL-INDIA_A | 4 | : | 0 |
| 3 | IOCL-B | ONGC-B | 2 | : | 2 |
| 4 | MRPL | OIL-INDIA_B | 2½ | : | 1½ |
| 5 | HPCL-A | IOCL(AOD)-B | 3 | : | 1 |
| 6 | EIL | HPCL-B | 1½ | : | 2½ |
| 7 | NRL | IOCL(AOD)-A | 1½ | : | 2½ |
In round four the crucial encounter was between IOCL and ONGC. This match was very closely fought.
| Round 4 on 2017/12/21 at 03:00 pm |
| Bo. | 3 | IOCL-A | Rtg | - | 1 | ONGC-A | Rtg | 2 : 2 |
| 1.1 | GM | | 2542 | - | GM | | 2680 | 1 - 0 |
| 1.2 | GM | | 2655 | - | GM | | 2715 | ½ - ½ |
| 1.3 | GM | | 2650 | - | GM | | 2586 | 0 - 1 |
| 1.4 | GM | | 2580 | - | GM | | 2646 | ½ - ½ |
Lalith Babu continued his tremendous form as he got the better of Sasikiran Krishnan. But Deep Sengupta pulled it back for his team by beating Surya Shekhar Ganguly. Adhiban and Karthikeyean drew their games against Vidit and Sethuraman respectively.
The battle between two of the biggest talents in India currently - Adhiban and Vidit ended in a draw
| Photo: IA Vasanth B.H
Deep Sengupta had earlier lost to Padmini Rout in this tournament. He made amends when he scored a crucial win against Surya Shekhar Ganguly in the fourth round
| Photo: IA Vasanth B.H
This is how things looks as of now after four rounds of this "secret championship".
Ranking after round 4
| Rk. | SNo | Team | Games | + | = | - | TB1 | TB2 | TB3 |
| 1 | 3 | IOCL-A | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 7 | 14,0 | 0 |
| 2 | 1 | ONGC-A | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 7 | 12,0 | 0 |
| 3 | 2 | BPCL | 4 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 13,0 | 0 |
| 4 | 4 | IOCL-B | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 11,0 | 0 |
| 5 | 5 | ONGC-B | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 9,5 | 0 |
| 6 | 7 | MRPL | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 8,5 | 0 |
| 7 | 8 | HPCL-A | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 8,0 | 0 |
| 8 | 6 | OIL-INDIA_A | 4 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 7,5 | 0 |
| 9 | 11 | HPCL-B | 4 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 7,0 | 0 |
| 10 | 10 | EIL | 4 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 5,0 | 2 |
| 11 | 13 | IOCL(AOD)-B | 4 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 5,0 | 0 |
| 12 | 9 | OIL-INDIA_B | 4 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 4,5 | 2 |
| 13 | 12 | IOCL(AOD)-A | 4 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 4,5 | 0 |
| 14 | 14 | NRL | 4 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 2,5 | 0 |
I would say that ONGC is currently well placed to shoot into lead because they have played against both IOCL and BPCL. The key match in round five between IOCL and BPCL will decide who goes on to become the champion of this event. ChessBase India will bring you all the coverage, so stay tuned.
Special thanks to chief arbiter IA Vasanth B.H who sent the pictures for this event.
| Photo: Akshay Halagannavar
Note: There are no games published in this report because the players have requested them not to be published. They are using this event as a mode of preparation for their future important events like World Rapid and Blitz 2017 and they would not like their future opponents to know about the new ideas that they have prepared and are using here.
