Indian Grandmasters J. Deepan Chakkravarthy, Abhijit Kunte and Vidit Santosh Gujrathi, and Bangladesh’s GM Abdulla al-Rakib share the lead with three points each at the end of the third round of the sixth Kolkata Open international chess tournament here on Thursday.
The top board action saw Levan Pantsulaia of Georgia, who adopted the Benoni defence, foregoing his rook but getting only a bishop in compensation from Abdulla.
In the resultant queen and rook versus queen and knight ending, Abdulla used his extra pawn to register a win in 62 moves.
Abdulla’s compatriot GM Ziaur Rahman caused the biggest upset of the tournament so far by beating top seeded Nigel Short of England.
Rahman deviated from the regular Nimzo Indian defence to exchange the queens as early as in the eighth move.
Rahman capitalised on some weak moves by Short to position his rooks strongly following which the latter resigned after 28 moves fearing loss of further material. Playing Slav defence, former Asian junior champion Deepan Chakkravarthy sacrificed his bishop on the 13th move against compatriot M.R. Lalith Babu.
To ensure his queen was not cornered, Lalith Babu returned the piece after seven moves.
Deepan gained a pawn in the end game and, with his connected pawns at the centre, he forced a win in 60 moves.
Vidit Santosh Gujrathi downed compatriot GM Debashis Das in 22 moves while veteran Abhijit Kunte won his third straight match beating GM Deep Sengupta.
Important results:
Third round: Abdulla al-Rakib (Ban) 3 bt Levan Pantsulaia (Geo) 2; Debashis Das 2 lost to Vidit Santosh Gujrathi 3; M.R. Lalith Babu 2 lost to J. Deepan Chakkravarthy 3, Oliver Barbosa (Phi) 2.5 drew with Diptayan Ghosh 2.5; Deep Sengupta 2 lost to Abhijit Kunte 3; Nigel Short (Eng) 1.5 lost to Ziaur Rahman (Ban) 2.5; Kivanc Haznedaroglu (Tur) 2.5 bt Sergey Fedorchuk (Ukr) 1.5; Konstantin Landa (Rus) 2 drew with Moulthun Ly (Aus) 2; P. Shyam Nikil 2 drew with Avetik Grigoryan (Arm) 2; Somak Palit 2 drew with G.N. Gopal 2.
