Neeraj Mishra stuns Sasikiran

In a major upset, top seed Grandmaster Krishnan Sasikiran of PSCB was outwitted by International Master Neeraj Kumar Mishra of Tata Steel in the 15th round of the 38th National 'A' chess championship in Delhi on Tuesday.

Despite the shock defeat, Sasikiran remains in sole lead with 11 points followed by GMs Abhjit Kunte of PSCB and Dibyendu Barua, who drew their boards, with 10 points each.

The fourth place is held by GM-norm holder IM P Konguvel of PSCB who has 9.5 points.

It was a tough day for Sasikiran as Mishra played a solid game with white pieces. Getting equality was not a problem in an irregular queen pawn game but striving for a victory became difficult for the highest-rated player of the country after World champion Vishwanathan Anand.

Slow manoeuvering ensued in the middlegame and Mishra held his fort with a sound pawn structure and equally developed pieces. An over-ambitious Sasikiran went for the kill with a piece sacrifice to open up the game but the plan boomeranged.

Mishra, with his subtle and effective defensive skill thwarted all attack and in the end emerged a rook more than Sasikiran. It was futile to carry on the battle after that.

Kunte and Barua agreed to quick draws with IM Lanka Ravi of PSCB and double GM-norm holder P Harikrishna of Wipro respectively.

Konguvel accounted for IM Atanu Lahiri of LIC from the black side of a Grunfeld defence. The middlegame was fiercely fought and Konguvel capitalised on a tactical error to get two pieces for a rook.

Atanu seemed to lose control in the endgame and succumbed in the last few minutes of the session.

IM V Saravanan of PSCB defeated Nassir Wajih of Railway Board while IM Shekhar Sahu of BSB got the better of teammate and Grandmaster-in-waiting G B Prakash in other interesting games of the day.

Results (Round 15): P Thipsay (8) drew S S Ganguly (8.5); A Kunte (10) drew L Ravi (6.5); V Saravanan (4) bt N Wajih (3); D Barua (10) drew P Harikrishna (7.5); S Jha (5.5) drew K Murugan (6); G B Prakash (6) lost toS C Sahu (7.5); D V Prasad (7.5) drew N Das (4); N K Mishra (8.5) bt K Sasikiran (11);A Lahiri (7) lost to P Konguvel (9.5); S Chowdhury (5.5)-bye.