Stalemates on the top boards kept the overnight leadership status intact after the penultimate round of the LIC international Grandmasters chess here on Monday.
Playing out draws, Nigel Short, Surya Shekhar Ganguly and Lu Shanglei took their tally to 6.5 points each after eight rounds. Seven players, including Sandipan Chanda, Deep Sengupta, G.N. Gopal, and IM K. Ratnakaran, are half a point behind.
Playing on the top board, Ganguly survived a scare against Shanglei as he lost a pawn in the middle game complications in a sharp variation of the Dutch Leningrad.
Despite being a pawn down, the Indian was able to squeeze out a draw after the exchange of bishops in a rook ending.
The second board battle featuring Short and Chanda was more intense. Chanda, true to his style, sacrificed his rook for knight in the centre to steer the game into unfathomable complications. He created two passed pawns on the kingside and there was excitement amongst the motley crowd, which expected the Indian to checkmate the fancied Englishman.
But Short thwarted any such plans by actively utilising his rook to force a draw by repetition of moves.
Ratnakaran sprung a surprise by stunning Pavel Kotsur with black in a Maroczy bind of the Sicilian defence.
Ratnakaran successfully utilised his passed pawn on d3 to create threats on Kotsur’s kingside and the attack yielded him his opponent’s queen after which the latter resigned.
Important results (eighth round): Surya Shekhar Ganguly 6.5 drew with Lu Shanglei (Chn) 6.5, Sandipan Chanda 6 drew with Nigel Short (Eng) 6.5.
Kirill Stupak (Blr) 6 drew with IM Wang Chen (Chn) 6, R.R. Laxman 5.5 drew with Quesada Perez Yuniesky (Cub) 5.5.
Ortiz Suarez Reynaldo (Cub) 6 bt Ankit R. Rajpara 5, G.N. Gopal 6 bt Sayantan Das 5, Pavel Kotsur (Kaz) 5 lost to K. Ratnakaran 6.
Shardul Gagare 5 lost to Deep Sengupta 6, Dimitry Kokarev (Rus) 5.5 bt P. Shyam Nikhil 4.5, Rakesh Kulkarni 4.5 lost to M.R. Lalith Babu 5.5, Vladislav Kovalev (Blr) 5 drew with Sriram Jha 5.
