Kanpur (27 Feb 22) :- IM Koustav Chatterjee of West Bengal continued his impressive show and downed fourth seed and two time national champion Karthikeyan Murali in the fifth round of the ongoing MPL 58th Senior National Chess Championship here Ganges Club here on Sunday.
Playing black side of Steinitz Defence of Ruy Lopez opening, Koustav sacrificed his rook for bishop and pawn on 39th move to garner full point against his fancied rival after 20 more moves. Earlier in the fourth round Koustav stunned fifth seed Sethuraman while in the third round he held top seed B Adhiban.
In other important fifth round encounters, former champion Grandmaster Lalith Babu M R of PSPB defeated Grandmaster Aryan Chopra of Delhi while much anticipated top board battle between young Grandmasters D Gukesh of Tamil Nadu and Arjun Erigaisi of Telangana ended in peace treaty after 46 moves arrived out of Semi Slav- Botvinnik System.
At the end of fifth round matches, second Arjun Erigaisi along with D Gukesh (photo above), Lalith Babu M R, Koustav Chatterjee and Commonwealth champion Abhijeet Gupta, who beat International Master Aditya Mittal are sharing the lead with four and half points. A pack of 14 players including top seed A Adhiban are now trailing behind the leaders with a drift of half point.
Earlier the fifth-round matches were inaugurated by Shri Satyadev Pachauri, Member of Parliament in presence of Dr Sanjay Kapoor, President All India Chess Federation. The sixth round matches of this eleven Swiss System tournament sponsored MPL Sports Foundation will be played on Monday morning.