PANJIM: The Day 6 continued with more upsets at the Goa Chess Association’s 1st Goa International Open Grandmaster Chess Tournament, as International Master Sayantan Das and IM Anup Deshmukh beat international Grandmasters at the Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Indoor Stadium, Taleigao.
While Sayantan beat GM Amonatov Farruk, IM Anup recorded a stunning win over Bangladeshi Rahman Ziaur.
The leader board is shared by three GMs — IDani Pouya, Neverov Veleriy and Babujian Levon with seven points apiece.
Among the Goan contingent, Fide Master (FM) Nitish Belurkar and FM Ameya Audi continued to impress as they frustrated their respective opponents despite ending their matches in a draw. The duo are on 5.5 points. Ritviz Parab beat Pradeep Tiwari to move on 5.5 points. Also to mention, Om Barde beat former Kerala state champion Anilkumar OT, currently raising his Elo to 138 points. He now moves on to 4.5 points.
Nitish, with the black, played a Fiancetto defence with Torre attack, which took his opponent International Master Vardan Nagpal by surprise which resulted in en exciting draw.
Playing with the black, Ameya played a Scotch game in a hard fought encounter which helped him to save his game front the jaws of defeat against FM Vinay Kumar Matta. The match lasted for more than five hours, the longest of the tournament so far.
Goa’s Woman Grandmaster Bhakti Kulkarni was held against Thaga Sheriff. Tanvi Hadkonkar, Aishwarya Thorat were the other Goans to record wins.
On board 5, Amonatov was one pawn down with knight but Sayantan with a strong black bishop slowly took over entire Amonatov game plan. The direct game helped Sayantan to record another tournament upset. On board 4, GM Ivan Popov was beaten by GM Babujian Levon. Ivan made a wrong sacrifice in the rook due to the time pressure as he was more than an hour on the same. Levon made the best of the game.
Grandmaster Bernadskiy Vitaliy (2547) beating veteran GM Neverov Valeriy and Chess Master Aditya Mittal and Fide Master Jubin Jimmy drawing against GM Tukhaev Adam and GM Predke Alexandr respectively were among the other unexpected results of the Round 8.
Earlier in the round seven, Gajwat Ankit stunned GM Rahman Ziaur while
Anuj Shrivatri beat GM M Vadim. Rahul V S also stunned GM Neelotpal Das.
In previous round seven, Ameya playing a Bastrikov variation of sicilian defence frustrated GM Tukhaev Adam and Nitish playing a classical variation of Scotch defence fought hard against International Master Stany G A to earn draws in their respective matches.
