Vikramjit Singh, seeded 55, shocked Grandmaster Ziaur Rahman of Bangladesh to be among the 16 leaders after round three of the Chennai Super Kings International Grandmaster chess tournament here on Wednesday.
Day two of the event was expectedly absorbing. FIDE Master Adarsh Jayakumar’s mistakes on move 26 and 27 cost him the game against top seed Aleksej Aleksandrov of Belarus. Ziaur Rahman of Bangladesh played poorly, made a blunder with a rook and lost in just 26 moves against Vikramjit Singh. Second seed Deviatkin of Russia fought hard to better Shashikant Kutwal in 62 moves.
It was also the longest game of the round and attracted most attention from the spectators. Third seed and India’s title hope B. Adhiban played a stunning rook sacrifice on move 35 to win a pawn that changed the game in his favour five moves later against Sudhakar Babu.
International Master Diwakar Prasad Singh made a fine comeback to hold fourth seed and Grandmaster S.P. Sethuraman to a creditable draw. In the end, Diwakar had an extra pawn and his king was checked repeatedly for a draw in 58 moves.
Grandmaster norm-seeking 13-year-old Karthikeyan Murali won a piece on move 31 to defeat Sohan Phadke. The other two existing norm-holders seeking further Grandmaster norms also recorded comfortable wins — Swapnil Dhopade won a pawn in a rook and minor piece ending to defeat Sidhant Mohapatra, while Shyam Nikil spotted a back rank tactic to defeat Matta Vinay Kumar.
Swati Ghate checkmated
All four women who played on two points failed to win in round three. While U. Ashwini was defeated by Aravind Chithambaram, former National women’s champion Swati Ghate was checkmated by Lu Shanglei of China.
However, the Orissa girls did better. Kiran Mohanty held International Master R. Siddharth to a draw, while Padmini Rout was held to a draw by lower-rated Niraj Saripalli.
In the morning session’s second round, Assam’s little known Santanu Borpatra Gohain accepted the gambited pawn and shocked Grandmaster Attila Czebe in 44 moves with the black pieces. Grandmaster Niaz Murshed lost a queen for rook and bishop and drew Harihara Sudan in 47 moves by creating a fortress.
Important results (Indians unless stated): Round three : A. Jayakumar (USA) 2 lost to A. Aleksandrov (Blr) 3; A. Deviatkin (Rus) 3 bt Shashikant Kutwal 2; Sudhakar Babu 2 lost to B. Adhiban 3; S.P. Sethuraman 2.5 drew with D.P. Singh 2.5; R. Balasubramaniam 2 lost to M. Dzhumaev (Uzb) 3; M.R. Lalith Babu 2.5 drew with J. Ramakrishna 2.5; Swati Ghate 2 lost to Lu Shanglei (Chn) 3; Z. Rahman (Ban) 2 lost to Vikramjit Singh 3; Anup Deshmukh 2 lost to Henrik Teske (Ger) 3; Wan Yunguo (Chn) 2.5 drew with Visakh Nr. 2.5; Sidhant Mohapatra 2 lost to Swapnil Dhopade 3; Karthikeyan Murali 3 bt Sohan Phadke 2.
