Satyapragyan crumbles under time pressure in National Challengers Chess Championship

TIRUPATI: Second seed International Master S Satyapragyan crumbled under time pressure to Praveen Prasad while three players, including World under-18 IM Debashis Das, shared the lead with four points from as many rounds in the 50th National Challengers Chess Championship on Sunday.In a surprising result, Satyapragyan succumbed to time pressure to hand full points to his Andhra Pradesh rival P Praveen Prasad in a keenly contested fourth round encounter.Playing black side of Queen's Gambit accepted variation, Das displayed sheer skills in the Queen and Pawn ending to garner full points against his Karnataka rival Arvind Shastry in 45 moves.IM Saptarshi Roy of Railways and G Akash of Tamilnadu joined Das at the top of the table after defeating Vignesh N R (TN) and Women Grandmaster Kiran Manisha Mohanty (Orissa) respectively.Earlier in the third round, top seed and defending champion Vikramaditya Kulkarni drew with IM R Balasubramaniam after a marathon match that lasted 123 moves.Second seed IM Satyapragyan settled for half point against E P Nirmal of Kerala and talented Orissa youngster Utkal Ranjan Sahoo outwitted IM C Praveen Kumar of Railways.Important Results (Fourth round): Aravind Shastry of Karnataka (3) lost to IM Debashis Das of Orissa (4); FM Diptayan Ghosh of West Bengal (3.5) drew with IM Chandrashekhar Gokhale of Air India (3.5); IM Saptarshi Roy of Railways (4) beat Vignesh N R of Tamilnadu (3); Sohan Phadke of Maharshtra (3.5) drew with Anurag Mhamal of Goa (3.5); Utkal Ranjan Sahool (3.5) drew with Arun Karthik R of Tamilnadu (3.5); WGM Kiran Manisha Mohanty of Orissa (3) lost to G Akash of Tamilnadu (4); Himal Gusain of Chandigarh (2.5) lost to Vikramaditya Kulkarni of Railways (3.5); IM Satyapragyan S of Air India (2.5) lost to P Praveen Prasad of Andhra Pradesh (3.5); Nirmal E P of Kerala (2.5) lost to Swayams Mishra of Orissa (3.5); IM Ramnathan Balasubramaniam of Railways (3) drew with Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury of Railways (3); G B Joshi of Air India (3) drew with IM Suvrajit Saha of Railways (3); T J Suresh Kumar of Railways (2.5) lost to IM Dinesh Sharma of LIC (3.5); Matta Vinay Kumar of Andhra Pradesh (2.5) lost to IM Ramnath Bhuvanesh R of Tamilnadu (3.5); N Sanjay of Karnataka (3) drew with Vikramjit Singh of Railways (3); Murali Krishnan B T of Railways (3.5) beat Sidhant Mohapatra of Orissa (2.5); Srinath Rao S V of Chattisgarh (2.5) lost to CRG Krishna of Andhra Pradesh (3.5); Shashikant Kutwal of Railways (3.5) beat Pratik Patil of Maharashtra (2.5); Ram S Krishnan of Tamilnadu (3.5) beat Abhimanyu Puranik fof Maharashtra (2.5); IM Sudhakar Babu of Indian Bank (3) drew with YVK Chakravarthi of Andhra Pradesh (3); Syed Anwar Shazuli of Railways (3) drew with Dhulipala Bala Chandra Prasad of Andhra Pradesh (3).