GM Dzhumaev Marat of Uzbekistan continued his fine run to retain sole top position with all win record at the end of Round-4 of the Rose Valley Open International Chess Tournament being played at Gorki Sadan in Kolkatta.
On top board overnight leader 17th seed Marat caused an upset today by beating 2nd seed Anton Korobov (2702) of Ukraine. Super Grandmaster Korobov, who won the 2002 and this year Ukrainian Championships, was considered as one of the title contenders. No one took Marat into consideration as an aspirant. Actually he turned upside down even with a deficit of pawn and a bishop in the mid-game.
IM Vidit Santosh Gujrathi (2527) and GM Mikhailo Oleksienko (2573) of Ukraine were jointly in the second position with 3.5 points each. Vidit, who recently emerged champion at the Premier National Chess tournament held at Kolkata, today beat his compatriot IM Narayanan Srinath (2439) and Oleksienko raised himself to 2nd position with a hard fought win over Indian GM Deepan Chakkravarthy (2487).
Seventeen players, along with GM Radoslaw Wojtaszek, GM Surya Sekhar Ganguly, GM Abhijit Gupta, GM Ni Hua (2660) of China jointly shared the 3rd position with 3 points each. Today “Super GM” Ni Hua stopped fine run of FM Shardul Gagare (2381) with a scrappy win after long battle.
After two wins in last two rounds, today GM Surya Sekhar Ganguly had to content with just half point against his compatriot GM Vaibhav Suri (2494) after 35 moves. Another Bengal GM Deep Sengupta (2540) kept his momentum what he had got with win against FM Anurag Mhamal (2370) in the 3rd round yesterday. Today, in the 4th round he had a encouraging win against Indian counterpart GM Sundararajan Kidambi (2434).
After three bad rounds, IM Suvrajit Saha (2338) today earned full point against lowly rated Kayastha Madan Krishna (2023) of Nepal.
Talented IM Arghyadip Das (2476) had an inconsistency run in the tournament as he lost to much below rated player SL Narayanan (2373). However, WGM Nisha Mohta (2339) and FM Sayantan Das (2312) earned half point each from Pratik Patil (2185) and IM MS Tejkumar (2442) respectively.
Philippines’ GM Paragua Mark (2533) for the second consecutive day failed to overcome Tamil hurdles. Yesterday he had to share points with IM Narayanan Srinath (2439) of Tamil Nadu. Today IM K Rathnakaran (2435) frustrated him with another draw.
13-year old prodigy Arvindh Chithabaram (2338) today succumbed to GM Enamul Hossain (2496) of Bangladesh.
Powerful tournament.