Thipsay leads with all-win record

November 30: Grandmaster Pravin Thipsay of Union Bank is on a roll. He won seven out of the seven rounds to lead the field wih seven poin...

November 30: Grandmaster Pravin Thipsay of Union Bank is on a roll. He won seven out of the seven rounds to lead the field wih seven points in the nine-round Rapid Tournament for the Independence Cup at the Andheri Sports Club here on Monday.

In the sixth round, facing Internaional Master Vishal Sareen, Thipsay was a pawn down but he converted that disadvantage into a brilliant victory under acute time pressure. In the seventh round, Thipsay saw off he challenge of Vedant Goswami of Jaipur, moving from his plus position into his seventh

victory. Goswami had defeated IM Neeraj Mishra in the sixth round.

Trailing him half a point adrift is Thipsay’s good friend and Union Bank mate, Sharad Tilak wih six points. IM Tilak defeated IM elect Jayant Gokhale. In the third position with 5.5 points are K Vishweshwaran of Tamil Nadu, Sriram Jha of LIC and IM Shekar Sahu also of Union Bank.

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Vishweshwaran, Jha and Sahu were playing black on he third, fourth and fifth boards and defeated DK Sharma, Sareen and SudhakarBabu respectively.

With the autorikshaw strike from midnigh tonight, the organisers, Young Challengers, were forced to hold five rounds today itself.

The main tournament will be held from December 2.

Results

10th Round: Vedant Goswami (5) lost to Pravin Thipsay (7); Sharad Tilak (6) bt Jayant Gokhale (5); Dinesh Kumar Sharma (4.5) lost to K Vishweshwaran (5.5); Vishal Sareen (4.5) lost to Sriram Jha (5.5); N Sudhakar Babu (4.5) lost to Shekar Sahu (5.5); Roktim Bandopadhyay (4) lost to Amardeep Bartakke (5); PDS Girinath (5) bt VKN Solanki (4); Saptarshi Roy Choudhary (5) bt Atanu Lahiri (4); Manish Kumar (4) lost to Prathamesh Mokal (5); Arghyadip Das (4) b SJ Kamath (4).