LIC 2nd International GM Tournament – Nigel Short and SS Ganguly are the leaders

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Top seed Nigel Short of England and six consecutive times Indian champion Surya Shekhar Ganguly jointly lead with 5.5 points each at the end of the sixth round of the LIC 2^nd International Grandmasters Chess tournament, organised by Dibyendu Barua Chess Academy and All Sport Foundation, at the Indian Council of Cultural Relations, Kolkata. Four players – world junior champion Lu Shanglei and IM Wang Chen, both from China, IM Shardul Gagre of India and Stupak Kirill of Belarus are breathing at the shoulders of the leaders with five points each.

Official website/ LIVE games with analysis

The day belonged to eighteen year old IM Shardul Gagare, who  upset GM M.R. Lalith Babu in an interesting encounter which arose from a Queen’s Indian defence. Shardul won the exchange on the 30^th move, but Babu had compensation in the form of three pawns. Shardul later, effectively utilised both his rooks and won the pawns, after which Babu resigned.

IM Swapnil Dhopade, playing on the top board against Surya Sekhar Ganguly, opted for the Caro-Kan defence but lost a pawn on the 28^th move. Though Surya’s extra pawn was doubled he had the advantage of a rook and a bishop against Dhopade’s rook and knight. Finally, Surya’s active pieces forced a mating net around Dhopade’s king.

Nigel Short won a piece on the 45^th move against Dimitry Kokarev of Russia in the open variation of the Ruy Lopez by a neat combination after which he had little difficulty in winning the game a few moves later.

World Junior champion, Lu Shanglei of China won a piece against the Indian GM M. Shyam Sundar on the 33^rd move in a Queen’s Gambit  after which the latter continued for a few more moves before eventually resigning on the 43^rd move.

In an all grandmasters clash, Kirill Stupak of Belarus won the exchange  against Petr Kostenko on the 23^rd move in a Dutch Stonewall Defence  and later nursed his passed b-pawn to the queening square to force a win.

 Important Results of Sixth Round

GM	Ganguly Surya Shekhar	IND	5½	beat	IM	Swapnil S. Dhopade	IND	4½
GM	Kokarev Dmitry	RUS	4	lost to	GM	Short Nigel D	ENG	5½
GM	Shyam Sundar M.	IND	4	lost to	GM	Lu Shanglei	CHN	5
GM	Stupak Kirill	BLR	5	beat	GM	Kostenko Petr	KAZ	4
IM	Gagare Shardul	IND	5	beat	GM	Lalith Babu M.R.	IND	4
GM	Deepan Chakkravarthy J.	IND	4	lost to	IM	Wang Chen	CHN	5
IM	Lin Chen	CHN	4	drew with	GM	Quesada Perez Yuniesky	CUB	4
GM	Gopal G.N.	IND	4½	beat	IM	Narayanan Srinath	IND	3½
IM	Swayams Mishra	IND	3½	lost to	GM	Sandipan Chanda	IND	4½
IM	Himanshu Sharma	IND	3½	lost to	GM	Sengupta Deep	IND	4½
GM	Kovalev Vladislav	BLR	4½	beat	IM	Shyam Nikil P.	IND	3½
GM	Rahman Ziaur	BAN	4	drew with	IM	Das Sayantan	IND	4
GM	Kunte Abhijit	IND	4	drew with	GM	Sriram Jha	IND	4
GM	Ortiz Suarez Isan Reynaldo	CUB	4	beat		Abhishek Kelkar	IND	3½
GM	Kotsur Pavel	KAZ	4	beat		Gusain Himal	IND	3
IM	Girinath P.D.S.	IND	3½	drew with	GM	Abdulla Al-Rakib	BAN	3½
GM	Oral Tomas	CZE	3½	drew with		Kunal M.	IND	3½
IM	Kathmale Sameer	IND	3	lost to	GM	Ankit R. Rajpara	IND	3½
IM	Vijayalakshmi Subbaraman	IND	3	lost to	IM	Das Arghyadip	IND	3½
	Kulkarni Rakesh	IND	3½	drew with	GM	Neelotpal Das	IND	3½
	Xu Yinglun	CHN	4	beat	IM	Shivananda B.S.	IND	3
IM	Murali Krishnan B.T.	IND	3½	drew with	GM	Roy Chowdhury Saptarshi	IND	3½
IM	Rathnakaran K.	IND	4	beat		Harsha Bharathakoti	IND	3
	Ravi Teja S.	IND	4	beat	FM	Rakesh Kumar Jena	IND	3
	Sahoo Utkal Ranjan	IND	3	lost to	IM	Satyapragyan Swayangsu	IND	4
GM	Laxman R.R.	IND	4	beat		Michelle Catherina P	IND	3