Abhijeet beats top seed Kravtsiv; regains full point lead

New Delhi: Grandmaster and Commonwealth Chess champion Abhijeet Gupta outplayed top seed Martyn Kravtsiv of Ukraine to regain a full point lead after the end of the 7th round of the premier section of 12th Parsvnath Delhi International Grandmasters Chess Tournament here at Ludlow Castle Sports complex.

Displaying top form again, Gupta was unstoppablke from the black side of a Scotch opening against Kravtsiv who needed to win to stay in concetntion for top honours int he tournament. It turned out to be a brilliant endgame display from Gupta who is fresh from his victory at the Al-Ain Classic in the UAE.


For the records, the Scotch opening led to a slightly better endgame from Kravtsiv but it was not enough to garner a full point. The Ukrainian however wanted a win at all cost as he was trailing Gupta by a full point and that laid the foundation of a superlative endgame display.

The way he handled the rook and pawns endgame left Kravtsiv gaping and the end postion was theoretically won for Gupta who took his tally to a remarkable 6.5 points out of a possible seven.

On the second board, M R Lalith Babu played it safe and drew in just 20 moves against Merab Gagunashvili of Georgia to inch himself up to 5.5 points. Joining him on the second spot was young International Master Ankit Rajpara who got the better of Levon Pantsulaia of Georgia, Veleriy Neverov of Ukraine, young talent Bobir Sattarov of Uzbekistan and Eldar Gasanov, also of Ukraine.

In the next round now Gupta will play as white against Rajpara while Lalith Babu meets Sattarov.

Earlier in the seventh round game, Gupta had drawn with Neverov after standing slightly better for the major part of a queen pawn game. The drawn result had helped Lalith Bau bridge the gap as he scored an easy victory over Raset Ziatdinov of Uzbekistan.

Meanwhile after the conclusion of the 'B' group, the 'C' group took off in style with 780 participants. The organisers have offered a record prize fund in the world for such a tournament. The entries int he 'C' group combined with the 'B' and premier section have surpassed 1400 registered participants which is a record by miles in any event held in the country.

Earlier in 2013, the total participants in the same events were 899.

Top results (Indians unless specified):

Round – 7 :- GM Kravstiv Martyn of UKR (4.5) lost to GM Abhijeet Gupta (6.5); GM Lalith Babu M R (5.5) drew with GM Merab Gagunashvili of GEO (5); IM Ankit R Rajpara (5.5) beat GM Levan Pantsulaia of GEO (4.5); GM Deepan Chakkravarthy (5) drew with GM Deep Sengupta (5); GM Venkatesh M R (4.5) lost to GM Eldar Gasanov of UKR (5.5); Sattarov Bobir of UZB (5.5) beat GM Marat Dzhumaev of UZB (4.5); GM Valeriy Neverov of UKR (5.5) beat Vignesh N R (4.5); GM Alexander Evdokimov of RUS (5) beat GM Raset Ziatdinov of USA (4); GM Vaibhav Suri (5) beat IM Akshat Khamparia (4); IM Ravichandran Siddharth (4) lost to GM John Paul Gomez (5); IM Karthikeyan P (4.5) drew with GM Arun Prasad S (4.5); IM Karthikeyan Murali (5) beat IM Stany G A (4); Nitin S (4.5) drew with GM Laxman RR (4.5); IM Swayams Mishra (5) beat IM Shivananda B S (4); Visakh N R (4.5) drew with IM Shyam Nikil (4.5); IM N Srinath (4.5) drew IM Saravanan V (4.5); GM Oliver Barbosa of PHI (4.5) beat Arjun Tiwari (4); GM Tornike Sanikidze of GEO (4) drew with IM Rahul Sangma (4); GM Sahaj Grover (4.5) beat Hemant Sharma (3.5); WGM Padmini Rout (4) drew with IM Saptarshi Roy.

Round- 6 :- Abhijeet Gupta drew with Valeriy Neverov; Levan Pantsulaia drew with Deepan Chakkravarthy; Raset Ziatdinov lost to Lalith Babu; Merab Gagunashvili drew with Bobir Sattarov; Deep Sengupta drew with Ankit R Rajpara; Vignesh N R drew with Venkatesh M R; S Kidambi lost to Martyn Kravstiv; Akshat Khamparia drew with Alexander Evdokimov; Stany GA drew with Vaibhav Suri; Marat Dzhumaev beat Pavlo Vorontsov; Eldar Gasanov beat Rathnakaran; Laxman drew with Visakh N R; Saravanan V drew with Swayams Mishra; Arjun Tiwari drew with N Srinath; Padmini Route drew with Oliver Barbosa; John Paul Gomez beat Abhimanyu Puranik; Arun Prasad beat Chinmay Kulkarni; R Balasubramaniam lost to Karthikeyan Murali; Shyam Nikil beat Tillyaev Ulugbek; Abhishek Kelkar drew with Rajesh VAV.