Woman Grandmaster Padmini Rout shocked GM S.P. Sethuraman in the fourth round of the Chennai Super Kings International Grandmaster chess tournament at the Nehru Stadium here on Thursday.
Padmini won this marathon 147-move battle and employed the endgame technique of checkmating with the bishop and knight which is rarely seen in tournament play.
Padmini shares the seventh place with 11 others on 3.5 points.
India’s Prasanna Rao shares the lead with five overseas players — Lu Shanglei (Chn), Aleksej Aleksandrov (Blr), Andrei Deviatkin (Rus), Henrik Teske (Ger), Marat Dzhumaev (Uzb) — on full four points.
Top seed Aleksandrov of Belarus gave a classy display in his 45-move crushing of Uzbek D. Kayumov. Second seed Deviatkin trooped in with his rook to win material and defeat B.S. Shivananda in 39 moves.
China’s Lu Shanglei sacrificed a bishop and gained access into Karthikeyan Murali’s king side to win in 26 moves.
Prasanna Rao crushed Wednesday’s hero Vikramjit Singh in 38 aggressive moves with black. Prasanna Rao sacrificed a pawn for a king-side attack which offered him a rook for bishop advantage. He soon used this to corner the white king for a place in the lead.
Important results, Indians unless stated (round four): A. Aleksandrov (Blr) 4 bt D. Kayumov (Uzb) 3; B.S. Shivananda 3 lost to A. Deviatkin (Rus) 4; B. Adhiban 3.5 drew with Shyam Nikil 3.5; M. Dzhumaev (Uzb) 4 bt R. Ziatinov (USA) 3; Lu Shanglei (Chn) 4 bt Karthikeyan Murali 3; Henrik Teske (Ger) 4 bt Aravindh Chithambaram 3; Swapnil Dhopade 3.5 drew with Praveen Kumar 3.5; Vikramjit Singh 3 lost to Prasanna Rao 4; Padmini Rout 3.5 bt S.P. Sethuraman 2.5; D.P. Singh 2.5 lost to M.R. Lalith Babu 3.5; J. Ramakrishna 2.5 lost to Wan Yunguo (Chn) 3.5; M.G. Gahan 2.5 lost to Niaz Murshed (Ban) 3.5; B. Kumaram 3.5 bt K. Rathnakaran 2.5.
