After two days of unrest where lesser-titled Indians harassed some reputed players, the fancied names found their bearing in the third round of the LIC International Grandmasters chess tournament here on Wednesday.
Top seed GM Nigel Short of England, fifth-seeded GM Surya Sekhar Ganguly of India, GM Petr Kostenko of Kazakhstan and Indian IM Narayan Srinath were the few who emerged unscathed and shared the lead with three points at the end of the third round.
Short was hardly tested as he crushed the talented Indian IM Swayams Mishra in just 22 moves.
Ganguly, too had a comfortable outing as he won against compatriot IM P. Konguvel from the white side of a Sicilian defence, where he had two bishops and a rook against the two rooks of his opponent.
Kostenko prevailed over IM S. Vijayalakshmi by virtue of having two extra passed pawns in a rook and minor piece versus rook and minor piece ending.
Srinath joined the elite GMs in the group at the top with a win against untitled Rakesh Kulkarni in a queen and rook versus queen and rook ending.
Untitled Abhishek Kelkar of Pune, who beat Bangladesh GM Abdulla Al-Rakib in the second round, produced another good show by holding compatriot GM Shyam Sundar to a draw with black in a Reti Opening.
Important results:
Third round: Nigel Short (Eng) 3 bt Swayams Mishra 2; Surya Sekhar Ganguly 3 bt P. Konguvel 2; M. Shyam Sundar 2.5 drew with Abhishek Kelkar 2.5.
M. Chakravarthi Reddy 2.5 drew with Abhijit Kunte 2.5; Petr Kostenko (Kaz) 3 bt S. Vijayalakshmi 2; M. Narayan Srinath 3 bt Rakesh Kulkarni 2; Neelotpal Das 2.5 drew with Utkal Ranjan Sahoo 2.5.
G.A. Stany 2 drew with Dmitry Kokarev (Rus) 2; Soumya Swaminathan 2 drew with G.N. Gopal 2; Lu Shanglei (Chn) 2 drew with Nr. Vignesh 2; Deep Sengupta 2.5 bt R.R. Laxman 1.5.
