Former Under-14 world champion and Grandmaster Vidit Santosh Gujrathi of Maharashtra joined GM Abhijit Kunte of PSPB in the lead with five points at the end of the sixth round of the sixth Kolkata Open chess tournament at Gorky Sadan here on Sunday. GM Abdulla al-Rakib of Bangladesh adopted Nimzo Indian defence against Vidit and the game went on the expected lines until move 19, when Vidit doubled his rooks on the open b-file. Abdulla exchanged one of the rooks to minimise Vidit’s attack. But, Vidit made a stunning rook sacrifice on the 23rd move leading to a knight fork of Abdulla’s king and queen. Abdulla resigned immediately. On the top board, Kunte again played it safe to keep the lead, holding the Philippines Grandmaster Oliver Barbosa to a draw in 25 moves of an English opening. The second board game between Levan Pantsulaia of Georgia and Ziaur Rahman of Bangladesh also ended in a draw after 44 moves.
In a same colour bishop ending, Orissa’s only Grandmaster Debashis Das had to give up his bishop to prevent Russia’s Konstantin Landa’s pawn on b-file from queening. Das resigned on the 41st move. Top seeded Nigel Short of England could not wriggle out of his poor form as Oriisa’s International Master Swayams Mishra forced him to concede his third draw in six games.
Fourth-seeded Mikheil Mchedlishvili Mikheil outwitted former national under-17 champion P. Shyam Nikil of Tamil Nadu. GM Neelotpal Das, representing PSPB went down to M. Shaym Sundar, another Grandmaster from PSPB. National woman champion Mary Ann Gomes was held to a draw by lower rated Harsha Bharathkoti of AP.
Important results: sixth round: Kunte Abhijit (5) drew with Barbosa Oliver (Phi, 4.5); Levan Pantsulaia (Geo, 4.5) drew with Ziaur Rahman (Ban, 4.5), Vidit Santosh Gujrathi (5) bt Abdulla Al-Rakib (Ban, 4); J. Deepan Chakkravarthy (4.5) drew with S.P. Sethuraman (4); Debashis Das (3.5) lost to Landa Konstantin (Rus, 4.5); Kivanc Haznedaroglu (Tur, 4) drew with B. Adhiban (4); Swayams Mishra (3.5) drew with NIgel Short (Eng, 3.5); Fedorchuk Sergey A.(Ukr, 4) bt Narayanan Srinath (3); Mikheil Mchedlishvili (Geo, 4) bt Shyam Nikil P. (3); Ly Moulthun (Aus, 3) to Lalith Babu M.R.(4).
