Team Herald
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TALEIGAO: The foreign Grandmasters had a great outing on Day 3 at the 2nd Goa International Open Grandmaster Chess Tournament as Armenian GMs Ter-Sahakyan Samvel and Petrosyan Manuel are in joint lead along with GM Kostenko Petr and GM Neverov Valeriy with four points at the end of Round 4, held at Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Indoor Stadium, Taleigao, on Thursday.
The Indian GMs had a mixed outing as GM Abhijeet Kunte and Deepan Chakkravarthy were held in their respective encounters while GM Venkatesh MR and Thipsay Praveen won their matches, as they all moved to three points. GMs Himanshu Sharma and Debashish Das moved on to 2.5 points after their draws in their respective matches.
Anurag Mhamal, who earlier drew his round three, went on to play an uneventful draw against Chess Master Rohit Krishna (2347). The match went on for just 30 moves. Anurag is now on three points.
Fide Master Nitish Belurkar entered into the end game with bishop, queen and two pawns apiece. Nitish had attacking chances but his opponent Hari Madhavan managed to ward off the attack by threatening a draw by perpetual checks, which denied Nitish the chance of a win and ultimately the game ended in a draw. Nitish is on 2.5 points.
Niraj Saripalli managed to script a win while Ritviz Parab was held to a draw. Nandini Saripalli, Leon Mendonca and Devesh Naik lost their respective encounters. Nandini, Ritviz, Leon and Niraj are on two points each while Devesh Naik is on 1.5 points at the end of Round 4.
On the first board, the game went for over four hours wherein it was sharp tactical plan but Leevan Pantsulaia made an error which the Ukrainian Neverov capitalised to pin him down.
On board 2, in cramped position Mohammed N Shaikh made a tactical error wherein he lost the game in just 33 moves against Armenia’s GM Ter-Sahakyan.
International Master Viani Antonio Da’Cunha drew with GM Deepan Chakkravarthy as both players moved to 3.5 points with Mitrabha Guha and IM Iniyan P, are also on 3.5 points. The newly crowned IM Mitrabha drew with India’s 61st GM P Iniyan.
On eight board, IM Gusain Humal went on to share points with GM Gupta Abhijeet after playing for 4 and half hours. Gupta was in commanding position after starting the game with Queen’s Gambut Decline but a steady error in the middle game saw him on the back foot. However, IM’s tactical decision for simplification of the game saw the battle end in a tie.
Meanwhile, defending champion Idani Pouyo (2597) continued his slow start to the campaign as he was held to a draw by India’s Koustav Chatterjee (2404). Idani is on three points.
Earlier, Sankalp Gupta also became IM at the conclusion of round three. Sankalp defeated GM Alexader Fier from Brazil in his third round battle.
In Category B, at the end of Round 7, Tamil Nadu’s Karthikeyen J, Selvamurugan and UP’s Rishabh Nishad are in joint lead with 6.5 points.
Meanwhile, Goa’s Paarth Salvi moved on to five points and is in 59th position. Pednekar Ayush, Parsekar Anirudh, Colaco Reuban, Ethan Vaz stay on 4.5 points. Sairaj Dilip Vernekar, Woman Chess Master (WCM) Gunjal Chopdekar, Tanvi Hadkonkar, Saish Fondekar, Gaude Sachin, Mandar Pradip and Kantak PM are on 4 points.
