Three Indians among the leaders
Three Indians J Deepan Chakkravarthy of Tamil Nadu, Abhijit Kunte of PSPB and Vidit Santosh Gujrathi of Maharashtra and one Bangladesh grandmaster Abdulla Al-Rakib share the lead with three points each at the end of third round of the 19th International Open Grandmasters Chess tournament, organised by Alekhine Chess Club at Kolkata, today.
In a Benoni defence on the top board, Levan Pantsulaia of Georgia had to forego his rook, getting only a bishop in compensation from Abdulla. In the resultant queen and rook vs queen and knight ending, Abdulla used his extra pawn to register a win in 62 moves.
Bangladesh had a field day today, as its another grandmaster Ziaur Rahman caused the biggest upset of the tournament so far, by beating the top seed Nigel Short of England. Ziaur deviated from the regular Nimzo Indian defence to exchange the queens as early as on 8th move. He capitalised on some weak moves by Short to position his rooks strongly. Fearing the loss of further materials, Short resigned after 28 moves.
Adopting Nimzo Indian defence against Debashis Das, former under 14 world champion Vidit Santosh Gujrathi of Maharashtra launched a heavy attack on the king side, with his queen, rooks and bishop. When Vidit sacrificed his bishop by playing B x h3, Debashis realised the danger and gave up the fight immediately after 22 moves. In a Slav defence, former Asian Junior champion Deepan Chakkaravarthy of Tamil Nadu sacrificed his bishop on the 13th move against 2012 Commonwealth champion MR lalith Babu of PSPB. To escape from his queen being cornered, Lalith Babu had to return the piece after seven moves, bringing parity to the game. Deepan gained a pawn in the end game and his connected pawns at the centre were vital to force a win in 60 moves.
Overnight leaders from West Bengal suffered a setback, when youngster Diptayan Ghosh had to be content with a draw against Oliver Barbosa of Philippines in a Slav defense game. Former national champion Abhijit Kunte of PSPB, commencing with Sicilian defense, continued his good run by beating Deep Sengupta, Kolkata’s highest ranked player in the tournament.
Important results of the third round:
Abdulla Al-Rakib BAN 3 beat 2 Pantsulaia Levan GEO
Debashis Das IND 2 lost to 3 Vidit Santosh Gujrathi IND
Lalith Babu M.R. IND 2 lost to 3 Deepan Chakkravarthy J. IND
Barbosa Oliver PHI 2½ drew with 2½ Ghosh Diptayan IND
Sengupta Deep IND 2 lost to 3 Kunte Abhijit IND
Short Nigel D ENG 1½ lost to 2½ Rahman Ziaur BAN
Haznedaroglu Kivanc TUR 2½ beat 1½ Fedorchuk Sergey A. UKR
Landa Konstantin RUS 2 drew with 2 Ly Moulthun AUS
Shyam Nikil P. IND 2 drew with 2 Grigoryan Avetik ARM
Palit Somak IND 2 drew with 2 Gopal G.N. IND
Krishna C.R.G. IND 2 drew with 1½ Mchedlishvili Mikheil GEO
Adhiban B. IND 2 beat 1½ Ravi Teja S. IND
Sethuraman S.P. IND 1½ drew with 1½ Karthikeyan P. IND
Sagar Shah IND 1 lost to 1½ Shyam Sundar M. IND
Danielsen Henrik ISL 1½ drew with 1½ Konguvel Ponnuswamy IND
Arun Prasad S. IND 2 beat 1 Akash Pc Iyer IND
Vignesh Nr IND 1 lost to 2 Laxman R.R. IND
Sarkar Justin USA 1 lost to 2 Abhishek Kelkar IND
Roy Prantik IND 1½ drew with 1½ Swayams Mishra IND
Hossain Enamul BAN 2 beat 1 Swathi Ghate IND
Narayanan Srinath IND 1½ drew with 1½ Surendran N. IND
Neelotpal Das IND 2 beat 1 Raghunandan K S IND
Deshpande Aniruddha IND 1 lost to 2 Swapnil S. Dhopade IND
Kiran Manisha Mohanty IND 1 lost to 2 Prasanna R Rao IND
Gomes Mary Ann IND 1 lost to 2 Karthik V. Ap IND
Kulkarni Chinmay IND 1 lost to 2 Sundararajan Kidambi IND
Any GM norm?