Indian aspirants got the taste of the quality of overseas challengers on the leading boards as six home-grown talents suffered losses over the top seven boards in the sixth round of the Rs. 30-lakh Parsvnath Delhi International Open chess tournament here on Monday.
Top-seeded defending champion Abhijeet Gupta suffered his first loss after overlooking a tactical shot in an objectively superior position against Vietnamese International Master Nguyen Van Hy in 65 moves.
On the top two boards, where the four leaders met, fifth seed Mikhail Mozharov ended Deepan Chakkravarthy’s unbeaten run in 31 moves and Ukraine’s Baryshpolets overcame Vikramaditya Kulkarni after 52 turns to remain ahead at 5.5 points.
Second-seeded Russian favourite Ivan Popov scored his fifth straight victory at the expense of Neelotpal Das while third seed Anton Demchenko got the better of Himanshu Sharma.
Among the Indians, C.R.G. Krishna did well to hold Italian GM Alberto David in 57 moves and N. Srinath continued his unbeaten run by getting the better of fellow International Master B.S. Shivananda.
Gurung takes titleIn the Category ‘B’, Sikkim’s Rakesh Gurung took the title with nine points from 10 rounds to collect the winner’s share of Rs. 1.50 lakh.
Local talent Manan Rai claimed the second spot with 8.5 points and received Rs. 1.20 lakh. Maharashtra’s Prasad Aurangabadkar also tallied 8.5 points but finished third their due to inferior tie-break score and was richer by Rs. one lakh.
The results (Indian unless stated):
Sixth round: Mikhail Mozharov (Rus, 5.5) bt Deepan Chakkravarthy (4.5); Vikramaditya Kulkarni (4.5) lost to Andrey Baryshpolets (Ukr, 5.5); Nguyen Van Huy (Vie, 5) bt Abhijeet Gupta (4); Neelotpal Das (4) lost to Ivan Popov (Rus, 5); Anton Demchenko (4) drew with Himanshu Sharma (4); C.R.G. Krishna (4.5) drew with David Alberto (Ita, 4.5); Cristhian Cruz (Per, 5) bt Nishant Malhotra (4); B.S. Shivananda (4) lost to N. Srinath (5); Saptarshi Roy (4.5) drew with Ramnath Bhuvanesh (4.5).
Alexander Evdokimov (Rus, 3.5) lost to S. Nitin (4.5); N.R. Visakh (3.5) lost to Sahaj Grover (4.5); N.R. Vignesh (4) drew with Axel Rombaldoni (Ita, 4).
Fifth round: Abhijeet Gupta drew with Deepan Chakkravarthy; N. Srinath drew with Anton Demchenko (Rus); S. Nitin lost to Mikhail Mozharov (Rus); Himanshu Sharma drew with Cristhian Cruz (Per).
Andrey Baryshpolets (Ukr) bt S. Satyapragyan; Sahaj Grover lost to Vikramaditya Kulkarni; Ivan Popov (Rus) bt N. R. Visakh; David Alberto (Ita) bt Rishi Sardana; Nguyen Doc Hoa (Vie) lost to C.R.G. Krishna; N. R. Vinesh drew with Ziaur Rahman (Ban); Shyam Sundar drew with M. Kunal. Abhishek Kelkar drew with Abhijit Kunte.
Category ‘B’: Final standings: 1. Rakesh Gurung (Sik, 9 points), 2-3. Manan Rai (Del) and Prasad Aurangabadkar (Mah) (8.5 each); 4-12. Rahul Gurung (Sik), G. B. Harshavardhan (TN), Koireng Leitanthem (Man).
Sanjay Chhabra (Har), Dinesh Ahirwal (MP), Aditya Basu (Ben), Barath Kalyan (TN), Nishrut Patel (Guj) and Rahul Verma (Mah) (8 each).
