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PSPB wins National Team Women 2019 and almost Open category

by Shahid Ahmed - 10/02/2019

PSPB wins National Team 2019 in both Open and Women category with a round to spare for second consecutive year. However, there is one unlikely scenario where Air India can win the Open category. Everything has to go Air India's way completely to get the title. In an unlikely scenario, if PSPB loses against Alekhine Chess Club-A and Air India wins with a minimum score of 3.5-0.5 against Bengal Red in the final round, only then they can become champion. PSPB dominated Day 4, by derailing both RSPB-A and RSPB-B with a same score of 3-1. Among the women, PSPB Women defeated LIC emphatically in round 5 with a score of 3.5-0.5 and whitewashed Tamil Nadu 4-0 in the penultimate round. This report contains games, photos and positions. The report contains games, positions, photos and video. Photo: Shahid Ahmed and Gopakumar Sudhakaran

PSPB dominates National Teams for the second consecutive year

Round 7 Open

Before the match, Surya Sekhar Ganguly with his friend and teammate GM Karthikeyan Murali | Photo: Shahid Ahmed

His actual opponent was GM Pandian Karthikeyan of RSPB-A | Photo: Shahid Ahmed

World Cup 2019 participant GM Surya Sekhar Ganguly got a huge space advantage early in the middle game which he converted easily against the reigning Commonwealth champion GM P Karthikeyan

Newly crowned National champion GM Aravindh Chithambaram took a quick draw with GM Swapnil Dhopade | Photo: Shahid Ahmed

GM G N Gopal played absolutely solid in French Tarrasch against National Open 2019 runner-up IM C R G Krishna and outplayed him | Photo: Shahid Ahmed

White has a huge advantage in this position, but how should white continue here?

They share a good laugh before battling it all out on the 64 squares. The game between GM Karthikeyan Murali and GM Deepan Chakravarthy ended up in a draw | Photo: Shahid Ahmed

Air India defeated Airport Authority of India by 3-1. IM Swayams Mishra picked up the decisive victory for his team against GM Stany G A | Photo: Shahid Ahmed

RSPB-B defeated Bengal Red by 2.5-1.5. IM S Nitin picked up an upset victory against GM Dibyendu Barua in an inferior position | Photo: Shahid Ahmed

Round 7 results

Bo.1  PSPBRtgFED-3  Railways SPB - ARtgFED3 : 1
1.1GM
Ganguly, Surya Shekhar
2636IND-IM
Karthikeyan, P.
2451IND1 - 0
1.2GM
Aravindh, Chithambaram Vr.
2601IND-GM
Swapnil, S. Dhopade
2488IND½ - ½
1.3GM
Gopal, G.N.
2594IND-IM
Krishna, C R G
2476IND1 - 0
1.4GM
Karthikeyan, Murali
2560IND-GM
Deepan, Chakkravarthy J.
2532IND½ - ½
Bo.4  Air IndiaRtgFED-2  Airport Authority of IndiaRtgFED2½:1½
2.1GM
Bakre, Tejas
2443IND-IM
Vignesh, N R
2473IND½ - ½
2.2IM
Satyapragyan, Swayangsu
2381IND-GM
Shyam, Sundar M.
2512IND½ - ½
2.3IM
Swayams, Mishra
2468IND-IM
Stany, G.A.
2517IND1 - 0
2.4GM
Narayanan, Srinath
2572IND-IM
Visakh, N R
2505IND½ - ½
Bo.5  Railways SPB - BRtgFED-6  Bengal RedRtgFED2½:1½
3.1IM
Nitin, S.
2395IND-GM
Barua, Dibyendu
2414IND1 - 0
3.2GM
Laxman, R.R.
2417IND-GM
Neelotpal, Das
2409IND½ - ½
3.3IM
Das, Arghyadip
2445IND-GM
Ghosh, Diptayan
2556IND½ - ½
3.4GM
Himanshu, Sharma
2441IND-
Koustav, Chatterjee
2332IND½ - ½
Bo.7  Alekhine Chess Club - A -RtgFED-10  Bengal BlueRtgFED3½: ½
4.1CM
Aronyak, Ghosh
2324IND-
Neelash, Saha
2340IND½ - ½
4.2
Subhayan, Kundu
2354IND-
Sarbojit, Paul
2014IND1 - 0
4.3
Srijit, Paul
2340IND-
Kaustuv, Kundu
2311IND1 - 0
4.4
Arpan, Das
2164IND-
Saptorshi, Gupta
2053IND1 - 0
Bo.11  Telangana SCARtgFED-8  All Orissa CARtgFED1½:2½
5.1
Bharat, Kumar Reddy Poluri
2252IND-IM
Sidhant, Mohapatra
2330IND½ - ½
5.2
Raghav, Srivathsav V
2042IND-
Sahoo, Utkal Ranjan
2356IND0 - 1
5.3
Varun, V
2239IND-
Nayak, Rajesh
2210IND½ - ½
5.4
Shanmukha, Pulli
1859IND-
Baivab, Mishra
2205IND½ - ½

Round 8 Open

PSPB defeated RSPB-B by 3-1 in the penultimate round to secure the championship | Photo: Gopakumar Sudhakaran

Only consolation for RSPB-B was IM S Nitin securing a draw with GM Surya Sekhar Ganguly in their top board encounter in Sicilian Taimanov

Reigning National Champion GM Aravindh Chithambaram capitalized on his opponent IM P Shyamnikhil's mistake in the endgame | Photo: Gopakumar Sudhakaran

In the game, IM P Shyamnikhil played 36...Kh5. Find out why it's a mistake and what was a better continuation for Black here

GM-elect IM Arghyadip Das blundered here with 34.Nb2 against GM Karthikeyan Murali. What did he miss and what was the better alternative?

GM Deep Sengupta drew with GM Himanshu Sharma in a game where Deep's exchange sacrifice and space advantage did not seem to be enough | Photo: Gopakumar Sudhakaran

All Orissa CA lost to Air India by 1-3 | Photo: Gopakumar Sudhakaran

Equation for Air India to become champion:

There is still some hope for Air India to win the championship in the open category. However, for that to happen, a lot of things need to go Air India's way.

1. PSPB needs a draw to become champion, so for Air India to win the tournament, PSPB needs to lose which is practically highly improbable since they have won 7 matches and drawn 1.

2. If PSPB loses by any margin, then Air India must defeat Bengal Red by 3.5-0.5 to win it. In case Air India wins by 3-1, then it will all come down to tie-breaks.

GM Visakh N R of AAI defeated GM Sriram Jha in a four-hour long grueling battle. Team AAI defeated Team LIC 3-1 | Photo: Gopakumar Sudhakaran
Final moments: Pawn race with Rook and a minor piece

Round 8 results

Bo.5  Railways SPB - BRtgFED-1  PSPBRtgFED1 : 3
1.1IM
Nitin, S.
2395IND-GM
Ganguly, Surya Shekhar
2636IND½ - ½
1.2IM
Shyaamnikhil, P
2428IND-GM
Aravindh, Chithambaram Vr.
2601IND0 - 1
1.3IM
Das, Arghyadip
2445IND-GM
Karthikeyan, Murali
2560IND0 - 1
1.4GM
Himanshu, Sharma
2441IND-GM
Sengupta, Deep
2555IND½ - ½
Bo.8  All Orissa CARtgFED-4  Air IndiaRtgFED1 : 3
2.1IM
Sidhant, Mohapatra
2330IND-GM
Bakre, Tejas
2443IND½ - ½
2.2
Sahoo, Utkal Ranjan
2356IND-IM
Satyapragyan, Swayangsu
2381IND½ - ½
2.3
Nayak, Rajesh
2210IND-IM
Swayams, Mishra
2468IND0 - 1
2.4
Baivab, Mishra
2205IND-GM
Narayanan, Srinath
2572IND0 - 1
Bo.2  Airport Authority of IndiaRtgFED-9  L I CRtgFED3 : 1
3.1IM
Vignesh, N R
2473IND-IM
Deshmukh, Anup
2259IND½ - ½
3.2GM
Puranik, Abhimanyu
2538IND-
Agarwal, Brajesh
1829IND½ - ½
3.3GM
Shyam, Sundar M.
2512IND-
Gajendra, Singh
1906IND1 - 0
3.4IM
Visakh, N R
2505IND-GM
Sriram, Jha
2376IND1 - 0
Bo.25  All Bihar CA - CRtgFED-7  Alekhine Chess Club - A -RtgFED0 : 4
4.1
Sonu, Kumar
1525IND-CM
Aronyak, Ghosh
2324IND0 - 1
4.2
Rupesh, Ranjan
1898IND-
Subhayan, Kundu
2354IND0 - 1
4.3
Aman, Kumar
1500IND-
Srijit, Paul
2340IND0 - 1
4.4
Vikash, Kumar Dwivedi
1687IND-
Arpan, Das
2164IND0 - 1
Bo.3  Railways SPB - ARtgFED-13  Tamil Nadu SCARtgFED4 : 0
5.1IM
Karthikeyan, P.
2451IND-
Arnav, Maheshwari
1825IND1 - 0
5.2GM
Swapnil, S. Dhopade
2488IND-
Barath, Kalyan M
2065IND1 - 0
5.3GM
Deepan, Chakkravarthy J.
2532IND-AGM
Sa, Kannan
1968IND1 - 0
5.4GM
Thejkumar, M. S.
2470IND-
Yutesh, P
1911IND1 - 0

Round 5 Women

PSPB Women defeated Team LIC 3.5-0.5 | Photo: Shahid Ahmed

WGM Swati Ghate got almost a winning position but WGM Mary Ann Gomes survived and salvaged a draw

The position seems incredibly uncomfortable to play. But we all know that IM Padmini Rout is a fighter. She managed to steer her ship away from the storm and sailed towards ashore to secure a full point.

Air India drew with Airport Authority of India 2-2 | Photo: Shahid Ahmed

Bengal Tigresses lost to Tamil Nadu by 1-3 | Photo: Shahid Ahmed

Round 5 results

Bo.6  L I CRtg-1  PSPBRtg½ :3½
1.1WGM
Swati, Ghate
2229-WGM
Gomes, Mary Ann
2317½ - ½
1.2WGM
Kiran, Manisha Mohanty
2069-IM
Padmini, Rout
23150 - 1
1.3
Tanuja, Kansal
0-IM
Karavade, Eesha
23650 - 1
1.4WFM
Bindu, Saritha K.
1523-WIM
Pratyusha, Bodda
22750 - 1
Bo.2  Air IndiaRtg-3  Airport Authority of IndiaRtg2 : 2
2.1WGM
Meenakshi, Subbaraman
2161-WIM
Chitlange, Sakshi
2127½ - ½
2.2IM
Vijayalakshmi, Subbaraman
2352-WIM
Pujari, Rucha
21330 - 1
2.3WGM
Kulkarni, Bhakti
2348-WIM
Nandhidhaa, P V
2268½ - ½
2.4WGM
Ramaswamy, Aarthie
2004-WIM
Parnali, S Dharia
21461 - 0
Bo.4  Bengal TigressesRtg-5  Tamil NaduRtg1 : 3
3.1
Mohana, Sengupta
1834-
Abirama Srinithi, G
1668½ - ½
3.2WFM
Arpita, Mukherjee
2184-WCM
Jyothsna, L
2115½ - ½
3.3WCM
Bristy, Mukherjee
1915-
Saranya, Y
19770 - 1
3.4WIM
Chandreyee, Hajra
1921-
Divya, Lakshmi R
18870 - 1

Round 6 Women

PSPB Women whitewashed Tamil Nadu Women | Photo: Gopakumar Sudhakaran

Bengal Tigresses were tamed by Team Air India by 1.5-2.5 | Photo: Gopakumar Sudhakaran

Airport Authority of India defeated Rising Bengal | Photo: Gopakumar Sudhakaran

Round 6 results

Bo.1  PSPBRtg-5  Tamil NaduRtg4 : 0
1.1WGM
Gomes, Mary Ann
2317-
Abirama Srinithi, G
16681 - 0
1.2IM
Padmini, Rout
2315-WCM
Jyothsna, L
21151 - 0
1.3IM
Karavade, Eesha
2365-
Saranya, Y
19771 - 0
1.4WIM
Pratyusha, Bodda
2275-
Divya, Lakshmi R
18871 - 0
Bo.4  Bengal TigressesRtg-2  Air IndiaRtg1½:2½
2.1WFM
Arpita, Mukherjee
2184-WGM
Meenakshi, Subbaraman
2161½ - ½
2.2WCM
Bristy, Mukherjee
1915-IM
Vijayalakshmi, Subbaraman
23520 - 1
2.3WIM
Chandreyee, Hajra
1921-WGM
Kulkarni, Bhakti
2348½ - ½
2.4
Roy, Pallabi
1785-WGM
Ramaswamy, Aarthie
2004½ - ½
Bo.3  Airport Authority of IndiaRtg-8  Rising BengalRtg3 : 1
3.1WIM
Pujari, Rucha
2133-
Sinthia, Sarkar
13511 - 0
3.2WIM
Nandhidhaa, P V
2268-
Sudipa, Haldar
16160 - 1
3.3WIM
Srija, Seshadri
2176-
Diya, Chowdhury
17091 - 0
3.4WIM
Parnali, S Dharia
2146-
Sneha, Halder
12821 - 0