Kolkata Open Chess: Kunta now sole leader

Former national champion Abhijit Kunte emerged sole leader with a perfect four points in the fourth round of the sixth Kolkata Open 19th International Open Grandmasters Chess Tournament here Friday.

Two other Indian players Vidit Santosh Gujarathi and J. Deepan Chakkaravarthy are joint second half a point behind the leaders.

Ten players have scored three points each.

Opening with a queen pawn, Abhijit played a slow and steady game to develop his pieces against Bangladesh Grand Master Abdulla Al-Rakib on the second board. After exchanging the minor pieces, Abhijit's queen and rook controlled the seventh rank and his extra pawn began to roll towards the eighth rank.

Abdullah resigned on the 34th move, when one more rook was about to seize the initiative on the seventh rank.

Young GM Gujrathi settled for a 31 move draw against J Deepan Chakkaravarthy in a game arising out of Slav defence on the first board.

The third board game between Kivanac Haznedaroglu of Turkey and Oliver Barbosa of Philippines and the fourth board contest between Kolkata's young IM Diptayan Ghosh and giant killer GM Ziaur Rahman of Bangladesh also ended quickly in draws.

In some of the decisive games among the top boards, Pantsulaia Levan of Georgia prevailed over his opponent P. Shyam Nikil, while B Adhiban got the better of Australian IM Ly Moulthun

Gregorian Avetik of Armenia tried in vain to win a rook and rook pawn ending against Kolkata's GM Neelotpal Das and split the point.

Top seed Nigel Short of England was held to a draw by ICF's international master P. Karthikeyan.

Important results of 4th round

Vidit Santosh Gujrathi IND 3 1/2 drew with Deepan Chakkravarthy J. IND 3 1/2

Kunte Abhijit IND 4 beat Abdulla Al-Rakib BAN 3

Haznedaroglu Kivanc TUR 3 drew with Barbosa Oliver PHI 3

Ghosh Diptayan IND 3 drew with Rahman Ziaur BAN 3

Swapnil S. Dhopade IND 2 1/2 drew with Landa Konstantin RUS 2 1/2

Ly Moulthun AUS 2 lost to Adhiban B. IND 3

Pantsulaia Levan GEO 3 beat Shyam Nikil P. IND 2

Prasanna Raghuram Rao IND 2 1/2 drew with Lalith Babu M.R. IND 2 1/2

Grigoryan Avetik ARM 2 1/2 drew with Neelotpal Das IND 2 1/2

Gopal G.N. IND 2 1/2 drew with Sundararajan Kidambi IND 2 1/2

Rathnakaran K. IND 2 beat Sengupta Deep IND 2

Akshat Khamparia IND 2 lost to Debashis Das IND 3

Shyam Sundar M. IND 2 1/2 drew with Palit Somak IND 2 1/2

Karthik V. Ap IND 2 lost to Arun Prasad S. IND 3

Laxman R.R. IND 3 beat Krishna C.R.G. IND 2

Abhishek Kelkar IND 3 beat Hossain Enamul BAN 2

Karthikeyan P. IND 2 drew with Short Nigel D. ENG 2

Fedorchuk Sergey A. UKR 2 drew with Satyapragyan Swayangsu IND 2

Mchedlishvili Mikheil GEO 2 1/2 beat Konguvel Ponnuswamy IND 1 1/2