PSPB wins National Team 2018 with a round to spare

by Shahid Ahmed - 13/02/2018

PSPB wins National Team Chess Championship 2018 in both Open and Women's category with a round to spare. In both sections, PSPB maintainted 100% Match Point. PSPB won both 7th and 8th rounds emphatically when they defeated AAI 0.5-3.5 and whitewashed Odisha-KIIT team by 4-0. PSPB Women's team defeated LIC by small margin 1.5-2.5 but they also whitewashed KIIT-Odisha Women's team by 4-0, replicating Men's team score in the penultimate round. Adhiban remained a spearhead for the men's team scoring 7.5/8, followed closely by Murali scoring 6/7 so far. Among the women, Eesha and Nisha have been the spearheads where both scored 4.5/5 till now. In this report, we bring you photos, games and analysis of round 7 and 8 in open and round 5 and 6 in women's category.

PSPB remains unscathed after the conclusion of round 8 and 6 in 38th National Team and 16th National Team Chess Championship for Women 2018

Round 7 Open section

IM G A Stany of AAI lost to GM Surya Sekhar Ganguly in a long theoretical line of French Tarrasch in just 34 moves

GM Baskaran Adhiban defeated GM S L Narayanan in prolonged Rook-Knight and then eventual Rook and Pawn endgame

GM Shyam Sundar drew with GM G N Gopal in an exciting game arising out of Sicilian Najdorf

GM Murali Karthikeyan capitalizes on tactical error made by IM Visakh N R in Ruy Lopez Karpov and Flohr-Zaitsev variation

Team LIC got whitewashed 0-4 by Team RSPB-B

In Anti-King's Indian System, GM Sriram Jha made a tactical error when he played 27.Rxd7 and sealed his fate. IM S Nitin capitalized on the error and won the game in the next 5 moves

GM R R Laxman converted his Double Bishop advantage in the endgame and converted into a win against IM D K Sharma

IM Anup Deshmukh got squashed by IM Arghyadip Das in just 27 moves in Semi-Slav defense

RSPB-A defeated Bengal Chess-A 3-1, however Debarshi held Deepan and Arpan held Thejkumar to a draw

Untitled Debarshi Mukherjee got multiple chances to win but he missed them all and eventually ended up settling for a draw

Arpan Das got clear advantage out of the opening in Albin Counter Gambit against GM Shyam Sundar of RSPB-A. However castling on the wrong side cost him the advantage, later he grabbed another pawn in the middle game with 19.Bxd4 and missed a decisive advantage when he played 27.gxh6 instead of Rd7

Bengal Chess-B drew with Air India 2-2 as Kaustuv Kundu and Saptorshi Gupta drew with GM Srinath Narayanan and IM Swayangsu Satyapragyan respectively and Suvradeepta defeated IM Rahul Shetty

Round 7 Open section results

Round 5 Women's section

Team LIC lost to Team PSPB by 1.5-2.5

Team AAI defeated Team Odisha-KIIT by 3.5-0.5, WFM Salonika Saina was the only one to score for her team as she drew with WIM Parnali Dharia

Team Air India defeated Team Odisha MCF-5 by 3.5-0.5, Yashaswini Sarangi is the only player to score for her team as she drew with WGM Aarthie Ramaswamy

Round 5 Women's section results

Round 8 Open section

Team PSPB whitewashed Team KIIT-Odisha 4-0 and won the tournament with a round to spare

Team RSPB-A defeated Team LIC by 3.5-0.5, only GM Sriram Jha scored for his team by drawing with GM Himanshu Sharma

GM Deepan Chakravarthy defeated IM D K Sharma when he could not handle the position properly after he sacrificed his Knight in Sicilian English Attack