Grandmaster Koneru Humpy of Andhra Pradesh yet again showed her tremendous potential as a fighter to move to sole second spot behind tournament leader GM Surya Shekhar Ganguly of PSPB after the conclusion of the 17th round in the 41st National 'A' chess championship in Kozikhode on Monday.
With just six rounds remaining in the 24-player contest, Ganguly, on 13.5 points, remains 1.5 points clear of Humpy who is followed by a pack of three players - top seed GM Pendyala Harikrishna of Andhra and the PSPB duo of British champion GM Abhijit Kunte and GM Sandipan Chanda.
IM Neelotpal Das, also of PSPB, is on sole sixth spot on 10.5 points while PSPB's GM R B Ramesh, S Kidambi and Commonwealth champion GM Dibyendu Barua of West Bengal jointly share the seventh spot on 9.5 points.
Humpy showed that she is made of sterner stuff yet again after Ganguly played out a draw with S Satyapragyan of Indian Airlines in quick time, thereby halting his five-game winning run in the championship.
Playing with white pieces, she went for less trodden paths in the Semi Slav defence against International Master Sriram Jha of LIC. Jha, who might have even hoped for some advantage as the game entered extreme complexities, logically played out the middle game but was in for a surprise as Humpy spotted a weakness in his base rank.
Soon Humpy's Bishops spat fire in the mid of the board and the Delhi-based Jha was forced to part with a piece. The game lasted 41 moves.
Almost as if taking a cue from Humpy's perseverance, her statemate Harikrishna continued to make rapid strides towards the leaders. PSPB's M R Venkatesh was at the receiving end against Hari's guile and endgame finesse that has seen many top players bite the dust.
Hari struck to the Berlin defence as black, the opening that gave him an important victory against Ramesh three rounds before, and equalised comfortably. Leading the game to a rook and minor piece ending, quite typical of the set-up, Hari marched his rook to the opposition territory where it picked up a couple of pawns on the queen side.
Venkatesh too did his bit on the other flank but realised soon that Hari's pawns were much faster in the race to glory.
The day also witnessed a fine performance by Ramesh who was clinical in his quest over teammate T S Ravi from the black side of an Alapin defence. Ravi slipped away in the opening and had Ramesh's queen against two dominating rooks that did the trick quite easily. Ramesh wrapped the issue in 39 moves.
Abhijit Kunte persisted hard and was just rewarded as his younger opponent Arghyadip Das succumbed to pressure. In a Queen's Indian defence as black, Abhijit got the upper hand and got a position that was slightly difficult to convert.
However, by opening a second front on the king side, Abhijit cast the dye decisively in his favour.
The battle between two former champions, Barua and Pravin Thipsay of Bank Sports Board, ended in a draw albeit after a tense battle while Sandipan's game was also drawn with double GM norm holder Tejas Bakre of Indian Airlines.
Results (round 17): M R Venkatesh (8.5) lost to P Hari Krishna (11.5); T S Ravi (5) lost to R B Ramesh (9.5); S Satyapragyan (7.5) drew S S Ganguly (13.5); Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury (9) drew S Kidambi (9.5); Neelotpal Das (10.5) drew S Vikramjit Singh (8); Tejas Bakre (9) drew Sandipan Chanda (11.5); Praveen Thipsay (9) drew Dibyendu Barua (9.5); Arghyadip Das (6.5) lost to Abhijit Kunte (11.5); Suvrajit Saha (7.5) drew Roktim Bandyopadhyay (7.5); V Hariharan (3.5) drew Prathaesh Mokal (8.5); Koneru Humpy (12) beat Sriram Jha (7); M Srinivasa Rao (2) drew Vishal Sareen (6).
