Indian GM Debashish Das could not capitalise on a crucial mistake made by top seed, Dimitry Kokarev, and slumped to defeat against the Russian in the 8th Mumbai Mayor's International Chess Tournament here today.
Kokarev, thus, recorded his fourth victory in as many rounds and led the field jointly with compatriot, GM Pavel Smirnov - the eighth seed - with four points after round 4 of the tournament being played at the Goregaon Sports Club.
Kokarev was left thanking his stars and the generosity shown by his rival Das for letting him of the hook.
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In the King's Indian opening, Kokarev made a crucial mistake on the 32nd move. However, his Indian rival could not find the correct continuation and eventually mishandled the position to lose the game.
On board four, GM Pavel Smirnov was lucky to score a full point against Ukranian GM Vitaly Sivuk as the players had reached a drawish position with rook and a pawn.
However, Sivuk overestimated the strength of his pawn on the 7th rank as against his opponent's pawn and made a serious blunder to gift away a point.
On board two, GM Mikeil Mchedlishvili and GM Ziaur Rahman adopted safety play to finish with a draw, while the game between GM Nguyen Duc and GM Martin Kravstiv ended in a fighting draw after 86 moves.
These players are now jointly sharing 2nd spot with 5 others with a score of 3.5.
Meanwhile, the giant-killing run of 17-year-old Rohan Ahuja came to end with his defeat against K Priyadarshan after a marathon 104 moves. Ahuja had held GM Deepan Chakravarthy to a draw late last night.
Amongst the women players, WGM Bhakti Kulkarni is in the lead with a score of 3 points.
Equally impressive were IM S Nitin and IM Swayams Mishra as they held higher rated opponents, GM Alexander Zubov and GM Aleksej Aleksandrov, respectively to draws in round 3.
