Adhiban stuns Negi

B. Adhiban punished top seed Parimarjan Negi for a tactical blunder and nailed him in a rook-pawn ending in 55 moves to move to the third spot after a victorious Sasikiran joined Lalith Babu at the top following the fourth rounds of the Jain 51st National chess championship here on Friday.

Even as this battle involving two former National champions produced some excitement, Sasikiran posted his third victory, at the expense of G.A. Stany in 49 moves to reach 3.5 points. Later, Lalith settled for his first draw in four games against Vishnu Prasanna in 60 moves.

A first victory for Debasis Das, in 41 moves, resulted in a hat-trick of losses for K. Ratnakaran.

The results: Fourth round: Parimarjan Negi (1.5) lost to B. Adhiban (3); Debashis Das (2) bt K. Ratnakaran (0.5); Vishnu Prasanna (1) drew with M.R. Lalith Babu (3.5); G. Akash (1) drew with Deepan Chakkravarthy (2.5); G.A. Stany (2) lost to K. Sasikiran (3.5); Akshat Khamparia (1.5) lost to Ashwin Jayaram (2.5); P. Shyamnikhil (1) drew with M.S. Thej Kumar (2.5).