Pavel Maletin ended Parimarjan Negi’s seven-win sequence by inflicting a 43-move defeat and emerged as the new leader in the Parsvnath Commonwealth chess championship at the Clarks Inn, Pacific Mall, here.
The result raised Maletin’s tally to eight points, half a point better than compatriot Dmitry Bocharov, who joined Negi in the second spot after beating Uzbekistan’s Saidali Iuldachev in 26 moves on the second board.
Sunday proved an off-day for Negi. The youngster’s prepared line in Slav Defence went awry on the 24{+t}{+h} move, a point from where the Russian kept getting stronger. Negi’s sense of danger worked too late, by which time Maletin was threatening to tighten the noose. A loss of a pawn meant further deterioration in the position for Negi, who slowly slipped deep into trouble and eventually gave up after 43 moves.
R. R. Laxman and Abhijeet Gupta remained in the hunt for a podium finish among the participants from the Commonwealth nations.
In the longest game of the day, a gritty Tania Sachdev foiled top-seed Alexey Dreev’s plans of forcing a possible win with some determined defence. During the game that lasted 164 moves spread over five-and-a half hours, the players had to face several distractions with the hotel staff busy setting up the playing hall for another function scheduled in the evening.
Earlier, the day had its share of surprising results. Vinay Kumar
Matta stunned third-seeded Argentine Anton Kovalyov. Sahaj Grover came out of a difficult situation to hold fourth-seed Dmitry Kokarev. Shyam Sundar proved equal to fifth-seed Eltaj Safarli. Prasanna Rao sacrificed a rook to force a draw by perpetual checks against ninth-seed Abhijeet Gupta.Young Girish Koushik upstaged D. Harika and G. V. Sai Krishna overcame Swapnil Dhopade.
With this unexpected victory, Sai Krishna also met all technical requirements to make a nine-game International Master norm. Earlier, Ramnath Bhuvanesh met the requirements for a nine-game norm the average rating of his nine opponents touched the technical stipulation.
The results (Indians unless stated): Ninth round: Pavel Maletin (Rus, 8) bt Parimarjan Negi (7.5); Saidali Iuldachev (Uzb, 6.5) lost to Dmitry Bocharov (Rus, 7.5); Abhijeet Gupta (7) drew with Prasanna Rao (7); Martyn Kravtsiv (Ukr, 6.5) drew with R. R. Laxman (7); Alexey Dreev (Rus, 6.5) drew with Tania Sachdev (6.5); Sahaj Grover (6.5) drew with Dmitry Kokarev (Rus, 6.5); Eltaj Safarli (Aze, 6.5) drew with Shyam Sundar (6.5); Suvrajit Saha (6) lost to Pablo Lafuente (Arg, 7); Abhijit Kunte (7) bt K. Priyadarshan (6); R. Ramnath Bhuvanesh (6) lost to M. R. Lalith Babu (7); Girish Koushik (7) bt D. Harika (6); Tejas Bakre (6.5) drew with Gurpreet Pal Singh (6.5); Aswin Jayaram (7) bt Sayantan Das (6); G. V. Sai Krishna (7) bt Swapnil Dhopade (6); Vinay Kumar Matta (7) bt Anton Kovalyov (Arg, 5.5); Sriram Jha (6) drew with Abhishek Das (6); Ankit Rajpara (6) drew with Enamul Hossain (6); Niaz Murshed (5.5) lost to Enamul Hossain (6.5); S. Meenakshi (6) drew with Anwesh Upadhaya (6.5); K. Rathnakaran (5.5) lost to Mehdi Hasan (6.5).
