National chess championship: Ganguly, Aronyak and Neelash jump into the lead

Neelash Saha, left, scored a fine win against seventh seed Sankalp Gupta
| Photo Credit: P.K. Ajith Kumar

From a field of 338, three have moved in front. All of them speak Bengali.

Three Kolkatans — Surya Shekhar Ganguly, Aronyak Ghosh and Neelash Saha — are in the joint lead with five points at the end of the fifth round of the 61st National chess championship at the RPS International School on Wednesday (August 21, 2024).

With six rounds remaining, they are followed half-a-point behind by defending champion S.P. Sethuraman, Karthik Venkataraman, Diptayan Ghosh, Sayantan Das and G. Akash, who scored a surprising win over P. Shyaam Nikhil.

Among the leading trio, Neelash is the unlikeliest: he is still an International Master and is seeded 16th. He upset the seventh seed Sankalp Gupta on the third board, playing some fine chess.

With white pieces in a King’s Indian Defence game, he did well to convert his advantage in space to victory. He sacrificed an exchange on the 31st move and 12 moves later, Sankalp resigned, with checkmate not far away.

On the top board, playing from the black side of an Italian Game, Ganguly won in 44 moves against Deep Sengupta. Aronyak opted for Sicilian Defence on his way to a 59-move victory against M.R. Venkatesh.

Important results (fifth round):

Deep Sengupta (PSPB) 4 lost to Surya Shekhar Ganguly (PSPB) 5; Sayantan Das (RSPB) 4.5 drew with Karthik Venkataraman (AP) 4.5; Neelash Saha (RSPB) 5 bt Sankalp Gupta (Mah) 4;  M.R. Venkatesh (PSPB) 4 lost to Aronyak Ghosh (RSPB) 5; Diptayan Ghosh (RSPB) 4.5 bt Zahid Raihaan (Tel) 4; Neelotpal Das (PSPB) 3.5 lost to S.P. Sethuraman (PSPB) 4.5; Mitrabha Guha (RSPB) 4 drew with S. Nitin (RSPB) 4; N.R. Vignesh (RSPB) 4 drew with Antonia Viani (Kar) 4; R.R. Laxman (RSPB) drew with N.R. Visakh (RSPB) 4; P. Shyaam Nikhil (RSPB) 3.5 lost to G. Akash (TN) 4.5; Sriram Jha (LIC) 4 drew with Swapnil Dhopade (Mah) 4; J. Deepan Chakravarthy (RSPB) 4 drew with Arjun Adireddy (Tel) 4; Ajay Karthikeyan (TN) 4 drew with Vignesh Adwaith Vemula (Tel) 4; P. Iniyan (TN) 4 bt Kheerthi Ganta (Tel) 3; Sharsha Backer (Ker) 3 lost to Himal Gusain (RSPB) 4.