Parsvnath: Abhijeet grabs sole lead with fifth victory

January 12, 2014 06:45 pm | Updated May 13, 2016 09:15 am IST - New Delhi

Abhijeet Gupta kept alive hopes of regaining the Parvsnath Grandmasters International chess title when he stayed ahead of the other title-aspirant after another energy-draining double-round day here on Sunday.

After stopping fellow-overnight leader M.R. Lalith Babu in the fifth round to enjoy a point’s lead, Abhijeet chose to take a 34-move draw with Valeriy Neverov and lead the field.

Lalith sliced Abhijeet’s lead to half-a-point by beating USA’s GM Raset Ziatdinov in 40 moves.

A series of draws, again owing to the format that allows double rounds on two alternate days early in the competition, also helped Abhijeet and Lalith to occupy the top two places.

Lalith, holding a slight edge after Abhijeet chose to trade his queen for three minor pieces, got too ambitious. Abhijeet then sacrificed a rook for a minor piece and proposed a draw, an offer that Lalith ignored.

Thereafter, Lalith pressed hard for victory in a fairly balanced position and lost.

While a spate of draws dominated the proceedings on the leading boards, there was a winner in the ‘B’ category of the competition. Vijay Kumar of Bihar topped a five-way tie at 8.5 points to win the title. Incredibly, R. Praggananandhaa, who recently won the World under-8 title, was part of the tie for the top spot.

The results (Indians unless stated):

Sixth round: Abhijeet Gupta (5.5) drew with Valeriy Neverov (Ukr, 4.5); Levan Pantasulaia (Geo, 4.5) drew with Deepan Chakkravarthy (4.5); Raset Ziatdinov (USA, 4) lost to Lalith Babu (5); Merab Gagunashvili (Geo, 4.5) drew with Bobir Sattarov (Uzb, 4); Deep Sengupta (4.5) drew with Ankit Rajpara (4.5); N. Vignesh (4.5) drew with M.R. Venkatesh (4.5); S. Kidambi (3.5) lost to Martyn Kravtsiv (Ukr, 4.5); Akshat Khamparia (4) drew with Alexander Evdokimov (Rus, 4); G.A. Stany (4) drew with Vaibhav Suri (4); Marat Dzhumaev (4.5) bt Pavlo Vorontsov (Ukr, 3.5).

Fifth round: Lalith Babu lost to Abhijeet, Rajpara drew with Gagunashvili, Vignesh drew with Deep; Deepan drew with Ziatdinov; Pantsulaia bt Khamparia; Martyn Kravtsiv drew with R. R. Laxman (3.5), Evdokimov drew with Stany, Venkatesh bt P. Shyamnikhil (3); K. Ratnakaran (3.5) drew with Dzhumaev , Neverov bt Padmini Rout (3).

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.