Grandmaster Abhijit Kunte maintained his lead by half a point with a score of 4.5 at the end of the fifth round of the sixth Kolkata Open chess tournament at Gorky Sadan here on Saturday.
PSPB’s Kunte, the overnight sole leader, played it safe and drew with GM J. Deepan Chakkravarthy of Tamil Nadu in 28 moves of an English opening game. Former age-category world champions B. Adhiban of PSPB and Vidit Santosh Gujrathi signed the peace treaty when the latter sacrificed his rook to force a threefold repetition draw with his queen.
In a complicated game, Levan Pantsulaia of Georgia prevailed over S. Arun Prasad of PSPB in 39 moves. Arun attacked fiercely but overlooked a series of combinations and exchanges leading to the loss of his queen for the opponent’s rook. Arun resigned when further extension of play would have led to a checkmate with queen and knight.
Oliver Barbosa capitalised on R.R. Laxman’s weak moves to post victory in 18 moves. Barbosa, Levan, Rahman, Vidit, Deepan and Abdulla are on four points.
Important results: Fifth round: D. Chakkravarthy J. (4) drew with Abhijit Kunte (4.5); B. Adhiban (3.5) drew with Vidit Gujrathi (4); S. Arun Prasad ( 3) lost to P. Levan (Geo, 4); Oliver Barbosa (Phi, 4) bt R.R. Laxman (3); Abdulla Al-Rakib (Ban, 4) bt Diptayan Ghosh (3); Debashis Das (3.5) drew with K. Haznedaroglu (Tur, 3.5); Ziaur Rahman (Ban, 4) bt K. Rathnakaran (3); Konstantin Landa (Rus, 3.5) bt Abhishek Kelkar (3); Narayanan Srinath (3) drew with Mikheil Mchedlishvili (Geo, 3); Lalith Babu (3) drew with Swapnil S. Dhopade (3).
