Former Mumbai champion, Santosh Khedekar (ELO 2015) suffered a defeat at the hands of a lower ranked Tushar Kuwar (ELO 1487) in round-4 of the SBI Life FIDE Rating Chess Tournament, and played at the Russian Cultural Centre on Wednesday. Tushar played cautiously and from the white side of Queen Pawn opening managed to complete the win in 35 moves.
Both Tushar and Khedekar were unable to gain a winning advantage and the game steered towards a draw. In an equal position, Khedekar rejected the draw offer from Tushar and stretched it to lose a pawn. Tushar took full advantage of this inaccuracy to clinch a win and now has 3.5 points.
In yet another shocking result of the day, former National B champion, FM Sajandas Joshi (ELO 2120) was lucky to get away with a draw from the black side of the Slav defense against Mumbai University player, Sanjeev Mishra (1590). All through the game, Sanjeev was dominating the position and consolidated with a strong passed pawn and, to counter it, Joshi had no option but to sacrifice his Rook for the Knight. The resulting endgame heavily favoured Sanjeev but the youngster played inaccurately and allowed Joshi to wriggle out with a draw and in the process save a valuable half-point.
Meanwhile, on board 2 & 3, Gopal Rathod (ELO 1842) and Ketan Patil (ELO 1748) were able to win their games against Akshit Jha (ELO 1579) and Pratik Gengaje (ELO 1528) respectively and have moved at the top of the standings along with a score of 4/4. Closely on the heels are a group of 6-players with a score of 3.5/4: FM Sajandas Joshi, Amardeep Bartakke, Tejas Joshi, Sanjeev Mishra, Malay Krishna and Tushar Kuwar.
Five more rounds remains to be played in this 9-round tourney with a prize pool of Rs. one lakh, which is being organized by Indian Chess School under the aegis of FIDE – the World Chess Federation at Russian Cultural Centre.
Key Results of Round 4: Mishra (3.5) drew FM S.G. Joshi (3.5); Gopal Rathod (4) beat Akshit Jha (3); Patil Ketan (4) beat Gengaje Pratik (3); Bhuta Hriday (3) lost to Bartakke Amardeep S (3.5); Kuwar Tushar (3.5) beat Santhosh Khedekar (2.5); Joshi Tejas (3.5) beat Pritam Panda (2.5); Prajapal Shendre (3) drew Joglekar Abhijit (3); Shirish Khodwe (2.5) lost to Krishna Malay (3.5); Dahale Atul (3) beat Moghe Parth (2); Shah Jeet (2) lost to Raul Devika (3).