New Delhi: Most of the top board battles in the eighth round ended without decisive results and which helped overnight joint leaders Filipino Grandmasters Oliver Barbosa and Gomez John Paul to maintain their joint lead with seven points after settling for half points against Grandmaster Andrei Deviatkin of Russia and Mark Paragua of Philippines respectively in the ongoing 10th Parsvnath International Open Grandmasters Chess Tournament here at Ludlow Castle Sports Complex on Friday.
A marathon 93 move battle on the top board battle between Deviatkin and Barbosa had its own twist and turn throughout the match as both players tried hard for a decisive result but at the end settled for the truce. Meanwhile top seed Grandmaster Sandipan Chanda got a major setback to his title hopes as he lost his eighth round match against Shyam Nikil. Playing with white pieces in King’s Indian Attack game, Chanda made crucial mistakes in the middle game to hand over full point to his International Master rival in 50 moves. This is the only match that ended with a decisive result in the top ten boards. This crucial victory enabled Shyam Nikil to occupy the joint second spot with six and half points. Grandmasters Deviatkin, Mark Paragua and Evgeny Gleizerov along with Indian International Masters Rathnakaran and Debashis Das are giving company to Shyam Nikil at second spot.
In the eighth round encounters, International Master Rathnakaran satisfied with half point against Debashis Das while Gleizerov signed the peace treaty with former national champion Abhijit Kunte by repetition moves.
In the ninth round tomorrow, Barbosa takes on Gleizerov while Gomez paired with Shyam Nikil. Three more rounds remaining in this Rs. 15 lakh prize money tournament.
Important Results (Indians otherwise stated) :-
Round-8 :- GM Andrei Deviatkin of Russia (6.5) drew with GM Oliver Barbosa of Philippines (7); GM Gomez John Paul of Philippines (7) drew with Mark Paragua of Philippines (6.5); IM Debashis Das (6.5) drew with IM Rathnakaran K (6.5); GM Evgeny Gleizerov of Russia (6.5) drew with GM Abhijit Kunte (6); GM Sandipan Chanda (5.5) lost to IM Shyam Nikil P (6.5); IM Kiril Kuderinov of Kazakhstan (6) drew with Ma Qun of China (6); IM Thej Kumar (6) drew with GM Deepan Chakkaravarthy (6); IM Lalith Babu M R (6) drew with IM Vaibhav Suri (6); IM Karthikeyan P (6) drew with GM Marat Dzhumaev of Uzbekistan (5.5); GM Mikhail Ulibin of Russia (5.5) drew with FM Diptayan Ghosh (5.5); IM Vidit Santosh Gujarathi (5.5) drew with IM Ramnath Bhuvanesh (5.5); Abhishek Das (5) lost to IM Ashwin Jayaram (6); FM Rajesh VAV (5.5) drew with GM Neelotpal Das (5.5); IM Swapnil Dhopade (6) beat Narayanan S L (5); IM Konguvel P (6) beat GM Laxman R R (5); IM Vakhidov Jahongir of Uzbekistan (5.5) drew with Saravana Krishnan P (5.5); Vikramjit Singh (5) lost to IM Anwesh Upadhyaya (6); IM Himanshu Sharma (6) beat Himal Gusain (5); Shardul Gagare (5) lost to Zeng Chongsheng of China(6); IM Nitin S (6) beat Mugil Jayavel (5); Akshat Chandra (5) lost to IM Vishnu Prasanna V (6); Joy Antony (5) lost to IM Shivananda B S (6); Shreyans K Shah (5) lost to GM Kravtsiv Martyn of Ukraine (5.5)
