Former under-16 world chess champion S P Sethuraman of PSPB bounced back from his second round loss to score a crucial win over Deep Sengupta in the third round of the ONGC 53rd National Premier Chess Championship here today.
Both overnight leaders Vidit Santosh Gujrathi of PSPB and P Karthikeyan of Railways drew their respective games with Shyaamnikhil of Tamil Nadu and Neelotpal Das of PSPB to continue to share the lead with 2.5 points each.
Sethuraman adopted the O'kelly variation of Sicilian defence against Deep, also of PSPB and third highest ranked player of the tournament, and the game later transposed to Alapin.
Though new to the format of round robin tournament, debutant K Praneeth Surya of Telangana displayed his prowess to outwit GM elect Swapnil Dhopade of Railways.
In the battle between winner and runner-up of National Challengers Championship, Praneeth rose to the occasion under time pressure to expose the opponent's unguarded king. He first sacrificed his knight on 35th move and went further to sacrifice his rook for a bishop to finish the game in style.
Former under-16 world champion Karthikeyan Murali and Grandmaster M R Venkatesh of PSPB played the Steinitz defence deferred variation of Ruy Lopez opening. In a queen, rook and pawns ending, Karthikeyan deflected his opponent's rook away from guarding his king by sacrificing a pawn. Venkatesh fell into the trap and lost a valuable point and is yet to score in the tournament.
