The National Senior Championship climaxes in an epic slugfest

by Satanick Mukhuty - 18/12/2019

The ongoing National Senior Championship has been witness to some really enterprising chess in the past few days with the top place changing hands thrice in the last three rounds of the event. Aravindh Chithambaram is the one in sole lead at the moment, beating Sandipan Chanda in the penultimate round he has pulled ahead of the rest by half a point. But Akash G, who created a rampage earlier by defeating one Grandmaster after another, isn't far behind either. Aravindh has a score of 8.5/10, while Akash is breathing down his neck with 8.0/10. And behind them is a pack of seven players chasing with 7.5/10 each. Read this illustrated report to get a glimpse of all the action from the last two rounds of this exciting event.

Breathtaking and bloodthirsty - that is exactly how one would describe this year's National Senior Championship that is taking place in full swing here in Majitar, Sikkim. The last few rounds of the event have been nothing short of a whirlwind where the first place has been wrested from the hand of one player to another and back several times. It really seems to be a sheer fight to the death at the top! After the penultimate round Aravindh Chithambaram has emerged as the sole leader with 8.5/10 points but Akash G, who has proven to be an absolute giant-killer in this tournament, is just breathing down his neck half a point behind with 8.0/10. Then there are seven players, including the in-form Vaibhav Suri and the experienced Sandipan Chanda, who are chasing Akash with 7.5/10 points each.

The leaderboard has changed quite dramatically in the last three rounds itself. Vaibhav defeated Akash to emerge as the sole leader after round eight, while in the very next round Sandipan defeated Vaibhav to get back on the top, and lastly, in the penultimate round Aravindh beat Sandipan to usurp the lead spot! All in all, the National Senior Championship has seen some very entertaining and fighting chess in the past few days.

Standings after round 10

Rk.	SNo		Name	FED	Rtg	Club/City	Pts.	TB1	TB2	TB3
1	2	GM	Aravindh Chithambaram Vr.	IND	2605	Tamil Nadu	8,5	0,0	61,5	67,0
2	21	IM	Akash G	IND	2431	Tamil Nadu	8,0	0,0	63,0	68,5
3	3	GM	Vaibhav Suri	IND	2597	Delhi	7,5	0,0	61,5	65,5
4	7	GM	Chanda Sandipan	IND	2545	West Bengal	7,5	0,0	61,0	65,5
5	9	GM	Visakh N R	IND	2516	Tamil Nadu	7,5	0,0	57,5	62,5
6	16	IM	Ravi Teja S.	IND	2455	RSPB	7,5	0,0	57,0	62,0
7	17	IM	Shyaamnikhil P	IND	2455	RSPB	7,5	0,0	56,0	60,0
8	29	GM	Himanshu Sharma	IND	2392	Haryana	7,5	0,0	56,0	59,5
9	31	IM	Konguvel Ponnuswamy	IND	2367	PSPB	7,5	0,0	54,0	59,0
10	5	GM	Lalith Babu M R	IND	2556	PSPB	7,0	0,0	62,0	67,0

After a tooth and nail fight for the top spot, it is finally Aravindh Chithambaram who has emerged as the sole leader going into the final round of the event. In the tenth round he defeated Sandipan Chanda playing the white side of a closed Sicilian. Let us begin by first looking at the highlights of this encounter.

Aravindh, who started off as the second seed, is now the clear favourite to win the event | Photo: Niklesh Jain

Aravindh Chithambaram - Sandipan Chanda, Round 10

Aravindh decided to eschew the Open Sicilian against the extremely experienced Sandipan. Thus, with 2.Nc3 and 3.d4 much of the heavy theory was avoided.

The same system was notably employed by Carlsen against Wojtaszek in Shamkir 2018. The line may not be very theoretical but it is indeed quite sharp as is evident from the double-edged position above.

Sandipan made the critical error with the move 18...Bd7?! and in no time the evaluation tilted in White's favour. Can you see how White seized the initiative here?

The problem with 18...Bd7?! is clearly the fact that it places the bishop straight in the line of White's queen and rook. Black is bound to run into trouble once the d-file opens up. However 19.fxe5 immediately doesn't achieve anything because of 19...Bxa4 20.Nf5 dxe5 etc. The correct way is to go 19.Nf5! threatening to take on e7. This was indeed found by Aravindh and after 19...Bxf5 20.exf5 Rfc8 21.f6 he was clearly the one pushing.

Position after 21.f6: White has already launched a powerful onslaught against Black's king.

The strength of White's attack is revealed in this position. From here the game followed 25...Nxb2 26.Bxh7 Nxd1 and Aravindh just didn't care about the material and went ahead with 27.Qh5! The rest was a picturesque king hunt and you can check it out below.

Sandipan Chanda suffered his second defeat of the event in the hands of Aravindh Chithambaram but earlier he had registered an emphatic victory against Vaibhav Suri. We will now look at this game in detail | Photo: Amruta Mokal

Sandipan Chanda - Vaibhav Suri, Round 9

Vaibhav played the Rubinstein variation of the Nimzo-Indian defense against Sandipan's queen's pawn opening. The move 13...Nf8 by him above felt slightly unusual because Black generally plans to go Ne4 followed by Ndf6 in such structures.

Black's delay to play Ne4 allowed White to carry out this nice Rc2-Bc1-Ba3 maneuver and force the exchange of light-squared bishops.

And after 17.Ba3 g4 18.Bxd6 cxd6 Black was simply left with a bad bishop on b7.

Next, White dominated the c-file with his rooks. Sandipan's position was already looking very good at this point but his opponent erred further here with 24...Rac8 and made his task easier as this simply ran into 25.Rxc8 Rxc8 26.Rxc8 Bxc8 after which Black's queenside was left completely vulnerable. Play through the full game below to know how the Bengal Grandmaster converted his edge.

Photo Gallery

IM Shyaam Nikhil P (right) held Vaibhav Suri to a draw in round ten. In the previous round he pulled off an upset by beating the top seed Abhijeet Gupta in a staggering 92-move long battle | Photo: IA Dharmendra Kumar

Abhijeet Gupta, who is the highest rated player in the event, hasn't had a great run. He was held to a draw by Bharat Kumar Reddy Poluri in the tenth round | Photo: IA Dharmendra Kumar

Diptayan Ghosh was held to a draw by Aaryan Varshney. In the game against Aravindh last day he actually got a better position out of the opening but ended up blundering at the last moment to lose the game | Photo: IA Dharmendra Kumar

Deepan Chakkravarthy won against Pranav V of Tamil Nadu to take his score to 6.5/10 | Photo: IA Dharmendra Kumar

Vishnu Prasanna (left) lost to Himanshu Sharma | Photo: IA Dharmendra Kumar

IM Mohammad Nubairshah Shaikh suffered defeat in the hands of GM Visakh N R | Photo: IA Dharmendra Kumar

Veteran Abhijit Kunte has a commendable 7.0/10 points in his kitty. He defeated IM Nitin S in the ninth round and drew GM Sriram Jha in the tenth | Photo: IA Dharmendra Kumar

Akash G makes his third and final GM norm!

Akash G, who is presently placed second just half a point behind Aravindh, has already earned his third and final GM norm from the event. The Tamil Nadu lad now only needs to cross the required 2500 Elo barrier to become the latest Grandmaster of the country! Can Akash do it? Well, judging by the way he is currently playing, 2500 doesn't seem to be a difficult target at all. His performance so far is well above 2600 and he is already gaining about 30 rating points. And the way he has defeated strong and seasoned GMs like Sandipan Chanda, Aravindh Chithambaram, and Deep Sengupta clearly reflects his enormous potential and talent | Photo: Amruta Mokal

Results of round 9

Bo.	No.		Name	Rtg	Pts.	Result	Pts.		Name	Rtg	No.
1	7	GM	Chanda Sandipan	2545	6½	1 - 0	7	GM	Vaibhav Suri	2597	3
2	6	GM	Ghosh Diptayan	2555	6	0 - 1	6½	GM	Aravindh Chithambaram Vr.	2605	2
3	21	IM	Akash G	2431	6½	½ - ½	6	GM	Vishnu Prasanna. V	2493	10
4	17	IM	Shyaamnikhil P	2455	6	1 - 0	6	GM	Gupta Abhijeet	2611	1
5	5	GM	Lalith Babu M R	2556	6	0 - 1	6	IM	Ravi Teja S.	2455	16
6	11	GM	Anurag Mhamal	2490	6	1 - 0	6	GM	Neelotpal Das	2430	22
7	31	IM	Konguvel Ponnuswamy	2367	6	1 - 0	6	IM	Vignesh N R	2475	12
8	29	GM	Himanshu Sharma	2392	5½	1 - 0	5½	GM	Sengupta Deep	2564	4
9	8	GM	Deepan Chakkravarthy J.	2535	5½	0 - 1	5½	GM	Sriram Jha	2384	30
10	25	IM	Gusain Himal	2412	5½	0 - 1	5½	GM	Visakh N R	2516	9

Results of round 10

Bo.	No.		Name	Rtg	Pts.	Result	Pts.		Name	Rtg	No.
1	2	GM	Aravindh Chithambaram Vr.	2605	7½	1 - 0	7½	GM	Chanda Sandipan	2545	7
2	3	GM	Vaibhav Suri	2597	7	½ - ½	7	IM	Shyaamnikhil P	2455	17
3	21	IM	Akash G	2431	7	1 - 0	7	GM	Anurag Mhamal	2490	11
4	16	IM	Ravi Teja S.	2455	7	½ - ½	7	IM	Konguvel Ponnuswamy	2367	31
5	24	IM	Mohammad Nubairshah Shaikh	2421	6½	0 - 1	6½	GM	Visakh N R	2516	9
6	10	GM	Vishnu Prasanna. V	2493	6½	0 - 1	6½	GM	Himanshu Sharma	2392	29
7	30	GM	Sriram Jha	2384	6½	½ - ½	6½	GM	Kunte Abhijit	2467	13
8	41	IM	Saravana Krishnan P.	2304	6½	½ - ½	6½	GM	Laxman R.R.	2444	19
9	22	GM	Neelotpal Das	2430	6	1 - 0	6½	FM	Harshad S	2291	44
10	34		Bharat Kumar Reddy Poluri	2337	6	½ - ½	6	GM	Gupta Abhijeet	2611	1

Final round pairings

Bo.	No.		Name	Rtg	Pts.	Result	Pts.		Name	Rtg	No.
1	17	IM	Shyaamnikhil P	2455	7½		8½	GM	Aravindh Chithambaram Vr.	2605	2
2	29	GM	Himanshu Sharma	2392	7½		8	IM	Akash G	2431	21
3	9	GM	Visakh N R	2516	7½		7½	GM	Vaibhav Suri	2597	3
4	7	GM	Chanda Sandipan	2545	7½		7½	IM	Ravi Teja S.	2455	16
5	31	IM	Konguvel Ponnuswamy	2367	7½		7	IM	Das Arghyadip	2459	14
6	5	GM	Lalith Babu M R	2556	7		7	GM	Sriram Jha	2384	30
7	11	GM	Anurag Mhamal	2490	7		7	IM	Saravana Krishnan P.	2304	41
8	13	GM	Kunte Abhijit	2467	7		7	FM	Navalgund Niranjan	2231	52
9	19	GM	Laxman R.R.	2444	7		7	GM	Neelotpal Das	2430	22
10	1	GM	Gupta Abhijeet	2611	6½		6½		Harshavardhan G B	2344	33

Complete results and standings

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