Daijiworld Media Network – Mangalore (SP)
 
Mangalore, Jul 22: Five players,  IM R Balasubramaniam of ICF, IM B T Muralikrishna of Southern Railway, C Praveenkumar and P Saravanakrishnan of Tamilnadu and N Sanjay of Karnataka are leading the pack with four full points at the end of the fourth round of the third edition of Mangalore FIDE rated chess tournament being held at Radhakrishna Hall, GT Road in the city.

The 11-round swiss event has so far produced some excellent results in which the less fancied players have held their experienced counter parts. The fourth round was inaugurated by Jayrama Bhat , managing director, Karnataka Bank, the chief sponsor of the event.
 
IM Thejkumar drew with O T Anilkumar of Kerala in 26 moves from a game arising out of English defence played by Anil against Thej’s d4 opening. Though Thej maneuvered against the queen side weakness of Anilkumar, it was insufficient to convert into full point, hence the players agreed to split the point.
 
On the third board, BT Muralikrishna of Southern Railay outplayed EP Nirmal of Kerala in 42 moves after Nirmal missed his way in the early middle game. The game started with Cambridge Springs variation and Nirmal equalized early in the opening. He had to play two pawns down in the Two Rook endings and could not hold on to the material deficit. But definitely it was Viani’s day, who handed a stunning defeat to IM D K Sharma of LIC. In a Sicilian Dragon variation, Viani sacrificed a rook for knight in tune to the opening and  recovered it back with advantage to convert into a full point. The game ended in 55 moves with Viani having three pawns more in the Bishop and Knight ending. Viani had drawn with WGM Meenakshi in the third round.
 
A group of  17 players are in the second spot with 3 ½ points each and notable players are GM Thipsay of Maharashtra, IM Thejkumar of South Western Railway, IM Rathnakaran of Kerala, IM Rahul Shetty and IM Anup Desmukh of Maharashtra, IM Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury of West Bengal, WGM Meenakshi of Indian Airlines, Varghese Koshy of ONGC. Top seed R R Laxman bounced back with a win over Debasish Dutta and is on the third spot with three points.