Gurgaon: Eighteenth seed International Master Prasanna Rao made a flutter in the ongoing 2nd Gurgaon International Grandmasters Chess Tournament as he outwitted second seed Grandmaster Oliver Barbosa of Philippines to make the tournament wide open as five players are now sharing the lead with six point points after seventh round matches.
Playing with dark colour pieces in declined variation of Queen’s Gambit opening, Prasanna took the initiative towards the end in a closely fought match that lasted 78 moves. Meanwhile the top board battle between Kravtsiv Martyn and Sahaj Grover ended without decisive result after 34 moves arrived out of Classical Nimzo-Indian. The crucial result in the top board helped Grandmasters Alexanader Evdokimov of Russia and Grandmaster Tornike Sanikidze of Georgia along with Prasanna to catch up with the leaders.
In the seventh round encounters, Evdomkimov defeated International Master N Srinath while Tornike got better off talented Indian youngster Sameer Kathmale. Twelve players are sharing the second spot of point table with drift of half point from the leaders.
The eighth round matches of this ten round Swiss system tournament are in progress at the time of report and the round was inaugurated by Shri. Arun Atari, Director Atul Memorial School along with Shri. Virender Yadav, Shri. Chander Kant, Shri. KK Munjal, Advocates and Manuj Bhardwaj, Director ‘I am change’.
Important Results (Indians otherwise stated) :-
Round - 7 :- GM Sahaj Grover (6) drew with GM Kravtsiv Martyn of UKR (6); GM Oliver Barbosa of PHI (5.5) lost to IM Prasanna Rao (6); IM N Srinath (5) lost to GM Alexander Evdokimov of RUS (6); GM Raset Ziatdinov (5.5) drew with GM John Paul Gomez of PHI (5.5); GM Tornike Sanikidze of GEO (6) beat Sameer Kathmale (5); IM Swayams Mishra (5.5) drew with IM Karthikeyan P (5.5); Karthik V (5.5) drew with IM Shyam Nikil (5.5); GM Merab Gagunashvili of GEO (5) drew with FM Akmal Faizulaev of UZB (5); Visakh N R (5) drew with GM Valeriy Neverov of UKR (5); Aniruddha Deshpande (5) drew with GM Arun Prasad S (5); GM Eldar Gasanov of UKR (5.5) beat Abhilash Reddy (4.5); Pradeep Kumar R A (4.5) lost to GM S Kidamabi (5.5); IM Rajesh VAV (5) drew with Deepthamsh Reddy (5); WFM Sarvinoz Kurbonboeva of UZB (5) drew with IM S Satyapragyan (5); Kunal M (5.5) beat Niranjan Navalgund (4.5); IM Vikramaditya Kulkarni (4.5) lost to IM Shivananda B S (5.5); GM Marat Dzhumaev of UZB (5) beat Manav Saxena (4); Vinayak Kulkarani (4) lost to Ravi Teja S (5); Deep Kapoor (4) lost to IM Nitin S (5).
