The National Chess Championship saw a flurry of activity on Tuesday, breaking the relative quiet of the previous three days. Several top Grandmasters suffered losses, while others fought to a draw. However, the tournament’s top seed, Surya Shekhar Ganguly, continued his winning streak, securing his fourth consecutive victory at the RPS International School. He is now among the nine leaders with four points, with seven rounds remaining.
The day saw some notable upsets. The number two seed, Abhijeet Gupta, who had a disappointing draw in the previous round, was defeated by Vignesh Advaith Vemula, a player rated 394 Elo points below him. The defending champion and third seed, S.P. Sethuraman, was forced to settle for a draw against P. Shyaam Nikhil in the day’s longest game, lasting a grueling 111 moves. The fourth seed, Diptayan Ghosh, also drew his game, playing just 18 moves against Swapnil Dhopade.
Further surprises arose with M.R. Venkatesh’s victory over the sixth seed and fellow Tamil Nadu player, P. Iniyan. This win marked a reversal of their previous encounter at the last Nationals. “This is the third time in a row we are meeting in this tournament, and now the scores are equal,” said Venkatesh, who claimed victory in 32 moves from the white side of a Sicilian Alapin.
Adding to the day’s unpredictable results, former champion and 14th seed, M.R. Lalith Babu, fell to Raihaan Zahid.
The day’s full results (fourth round) are as follows:
* Surya Shekhar Ganguly (PSPB) 4 bt C.R.G. Krishna (RSPB) 3
* S.P. Sethuraman (PSPB) 3.5 drew with P. Shyaam Nikhil (RSPB) 3.5
* Swapnil Dhopade 3.5 drew with Diptayan Ghosh (RSPB) 3.5
* Karthik Venkataraman (AP) 4 bt Utkal Sahoo (Odi) 2
* M.R. Venkatesh (PSPB) 4 bt P. Iniyan (TN) 3
* Sankalp Gupta (Mah) 4 bt Dinesh K. Sharma (LIC) 2
* Antonio Viani (Kar) 3.5 drew with Mitrabha Guha (RSPB) 3.5
* Aronyak Ghosh (RSPB) 4 bt Mukund Agarwal (Guj) 3
* Sai Karthik (Tel) 3 lost to Deep Sengupta (PSPB) 4
* Zahid Raihaan (Tel) 4 bt M.R. Lalith Babu (AP) 3
* Sayantan Das (RSPB) 4 bt A. Balkishan (Kar) 3
* Shrayan Majumder (Mah) 3 lost to Neelash Saha (RSPB) 4
* Vignesh Adwaitth Vemula (Tel) 3.5 bt Abhijeet Gupta (PSPB) 2.5
