PSPB maintains their lead at National Team 2018

by Shahid Ahmed - 12/02/2018

PSPB stays ahead of the pack as they maintain a perfect Match Point in both Open and Women's category after the conclusion of 6th and 4th round respectively. Both Adhiban and Ganguly won both of their games to ensure PSPB wins each round emphatically. GM Sriram Jha of LIC, had to succumb to two draws in the 5th and 6th round today against two untitled players, Kaustuv Kundu of Bengal Chess-B and Baivab Mishra of Odisha-A. AAI jumped to the second spot after they whitewashed both Bengal Chess-A and Odisha-KIIT in consecutive rounds and LIC jumped to the third spot after they won both of their rounds. Among Women, AAI jumped to second position after Tamil Nadu lost to them 1-3 and LIC jumped to the third spot as Odisha MCF-5 lost by 1-3 score, making top 3 standings in both Open and Women's category exactly the same after the conclusion of round 6 in Open and round 4 in Women's category. We bring you games, analysis and photos.

PSPB maintains their lead and top 3 standings in both Open and Women's category is exactly same after round 6 and 4 respectively

Round 5 open category

GM Baskaran Adhiban defeated GM R R Laxman without any difficulty

IM S Nitin was unable to extract anything against GM Surya Sekhar Ganguly in Sicilian Taimanov

IM Arghyadip Das despite getting an exchange up, GM Murali Karthikeyan defended it well

GM Deep Sengupta exploited pawn weakness of IM P Shyamnikhil in Sicilian Najdorf

IM S Satyapragyan was the only player from his team Air India to score by drawing his game against GM Swapnil Dhopade of RSPB-A

Team Odisha-KIIT lost to Team AAI by 0-4

West Bengal State Junior champion, Kaustuv Kundu drew with GM Sriram Jha

Results of round 5 in open category

Round 6 open category

Team PSPB defeated Team RSPB-A 3-1

GM Surya Sekhar Ganguly played in a swashbuckling style when he sacrificed his Bishop for three pawns when he played 13.Bxd4 in Sicilian Taimanov and made his intentions clear.

Team Bengal Chess-A got whitewashed by Team AAI 0-4

Baivab Mishra became the only player to score as he drew with GM Sriram Jha and team Odisha-A went down 0.5-3.5 against Team LIC

Baivab played a marathon game of 119 moves in a prolonged Rook and Pawn endgame of 75 moves, before both players agreed to draw due to a threefold repetition.

Results of round 6 in open category

Round 4 Women's category

Team PSPB continued their domination by defeating Team Air India 3-1

IM Eesha Karavade of PSPB got away with a draw as IM Tania Sachdev missed a couple of opportunities to maintain clear advantage and keep winning chances alive.

WGM Soumya Swaminathan of PSPB got a clear advantage in the middle game but she missed 23...Rb8 which would have given her a decisive advantage against WGM Bhakti Kulkarni of Air India. However a few mistakes in the endgame allowed Bhakti to gain an upper hand but Soumya fought back and saved the game.

IM Padmini Rout played an attacking game against IM Subbaraman Vijayalakshmi in Sicilian Kalashnikov variation and gained a Bishop in move no.35 and wrapped up the entire game in the next 10 moves.

WGM Subbaraman Meenakshi of Air India went wrong in Colle System against IM Nisha Mohota of PSPB and eventually Nisha went into a favorable opposite color bishop ending which she converted to a win.

Team Tamil Nadu lost to Team Airport Authority of India by 1-3

Results of round 5 in women's category

Previous round reports:

PSPB takes sole lead in both Open and Women's category in National Team 2018

38वीं नेशनल टीम - पीएसपीबी को शुरुआती बढ़त

Odisha-KIIT held Air India to a draw in round 3 of 16th National Team for Women 2018

Surya Sekhar Ganguly held to a draw in the opening round of National Team 2018

नेशनल टीम -R1-बड़ी टीमों की बड़ी जीत ! गांगुली को करन नें चौंकाया !

Watch 38th National Team & 16th National Women's Team Chess 2018 Live