Filipino Grandmasters Oliver Barbosa and Gomez John Paul defeated Grandmaster Marat Dzhumaev of Uzbekistan and Indian International Master Lalith Babu M R respectively in the sixth round to emerge as the joint leaders in the 10th Parsvnath International Open Grandmasters Chess Tournament at Ludlow Castle Sports Complex here on Wednesday.
Playing with black pieces in Caro-Kan defence game, Barbosa gained an exchange of rook for his minor piece in the thirty first move and facing the inevitable, Dzhumaev give up the match after six more moves.
While playing white side of Maroczy Bind variation of Sicilian defence, Lalith Babu failed to convert a favourable middle game position and lost the initiative towards the end to hand over full point to his Filipino rival.
IM Lalith Babu - GM Gomez John Paul
GM Oliver Barbosa
International Master K Rathnakaran with a drift of half point from the leaders is at sole second position. In the sixth round encounter, he defeated his railway team mate M S Thej Kumar. A pack of eight players including top seed Indian Grandmaster Sandipan Chanda, who beat Vishnu Prasanna in the sixth round match are at joint third position with five points.
The upset galore in this edition continued for another day as three Grandmasters suffered shock defeats from lower rated opponents and another six satisfied with half point. Playing with white pieces, untitled Chinese player Zeng Chongsheng shocked third seed Martyn Kravtsiv of Ukraine while Debashis Das and Shreyans K Shah outwitted Henrik Danielsen of Iceland and Hoang Thanh Trang of Hungary respectively.
IM K Rathnakaran
Among the Indian Grandmasters, former national champion Abhijit Kunte signed the peace treaty with Bitan Banerjee while Deepan Chakkravarthy, Neelotpal Das and R R Laxman satisfied with half point against Diptayan Ghosh, Ankit Rajapara and Hemant Sharma respectively.
Chandigarh youngster Himal Gusain held eighth seed Mikhailo Oleksienko to a creditable draw and second seed Aleksandrov Aleksej settled for half point against Indian International Master P Karthikeyan.
Earlier in the fifth round, the young Indian brigade of Vaibhav Suri, Diptayan Ghosh and Ashwin Jayaram suffered their first defeats in the tournament by the hands of their high rated foreign Grandmaster rivals. Vaibhav lost to experienced Marat Dzhumaev of Uzbekistan while Ashwin and Diptayan lost to Filipino Grandmasters Oliver Barbosa and Gomez John Paul respectively in the fifth round encounters.
GM Gomez John Paul
In surprising results of the round, local youngster Hemant Sharma stunned Grandmaster Richard Bitoon of Philippines while Saravana Krishnan outwitted Grandmaster Mikhail Ulibin of Russia.
MS Gopakumar
International Arbiter
Press Officer, 10th Parsvnath International Open
