Kolkata Open Chess: Three Indians share lead with Bangla GM Abdulla

Three Indians - J. Deepan Chakkravarthy, Abhijit Kunte and Vidit Santosh Gujrathi and one Bangladesh grandmaster Abdulla Al-Rakib shared the lead with three points each after the third round of the sixth Kolkata Open (19th International Open Grandmasters) Chess tournament here Thursday.

Bangladesh grandmaster Ziaur Rahman caused the biggest upset of the tournament so far, by beating the top seed Nigel Short of England at the Gorky Sadan during the day.

Ziaur deviated from the regular Nimzo Indian defence to exchange the queens as early as on the eighth move. He capitalised on some weak moves by Short to position his rooks strongly. Fearing the loss of further materials, the Englishman resigned after 28 moves.

In a Benoni defence on the top board, Levan Pantsulaia of Georgia had to forego his rook, getting only a bishop in compensation from Abdulla. In the resultant queen and rook vs queen and knight ending, Abdulla used his extra pawn to register a win in 62 moves.

Adopting Nimzo Indian defence against Debashis Das, former under 14 world champion Gujrathi of Maharashtra launched a heavy attack on the king side, with his queen, rooks and bishop. When he sacrificed his bishop, Das realised the danger and gave up the fight immediately after 22 moves.

In a Slav defence, former Asian Junior champion Chakkravarthy of Tamil Nadu sacrificed his bishop on the 13th move against 2012 Commonwealth champion M.R. Lalith Babu of PSPB. To escape from his queen being cornered, Lalith Babu had to return the piece after seven moves, bringing parity to the game. Chakkravarthy gained a pawn in the end game and his connected pawns at the centre were vital to force a win in 60 moves.

Some of the day's results

Abdulla Al-Rakib BAN beat Pantsulaia Levan GEO 3-2

Debashis Das IND lost to Vidit Santosh Gujrathi IND 2-3

Lalith Babu M.R. IND lost to Deepan Chakkravarthy J. IND 2-3

Barbosa Oliver PHI drew with Ghosh Diptayan IND 2 1/2-2 1/2

Sengupta Deep IND lost to Kunte Abhijit IND 2-3

Short Nigel D. ENG lost to Rahman Ziaur BAN 1 1/2 - 2 1/2

Haznedaroglu Kivanc TUR beat Fedorchuk Sergey A. UKR 2 1/2 - 1 1/2

Landa Konstantin RUS drew with Ly Moulthun AUS 2-2

Shyam Nikil P. IND drew with Grigoryan Avetik ARM 2-2

Palit Somak IND drew with Gopal G.N. IND 2-2

Krishna C.R.G. IND drew with Mchedlishvili Mikheil GEO 2- 1 1/2

Adhiban B. IND beat Ravi Teja S. IND 2- 1 1/2

Sethuraman S.P. IND drew with Karthikeyan P. IND 1 1/2-1 1/2

Sagar Shah IND lost to Shyam Sundar M. IND 1-1 1/2

Danielsen Henrik ISL drew with Konguvel Ponnuswamy IND 1 1/2-1 1/2