The local Bengal Brigade turned out with thumping performances in the third round of the Rose Valley Open International Chess Tournament, organized by Alekhine Chess Club at Gorky Sadan, Kolkata, India.
After two lack luster days, Wednesday brought out good news for the local stars as most of the players came out with creditable win. GM Surya Sekhar Ganguly (FIDE rating 2630) had yet another good day. Opening match of a new tournament was always hard when he was held to a draw. Now it seems the tiger from Bengal is back to his winning ways. Today Ganguly took just 35 moves to brush aside Russian GM Alexander Fominyh (2455).
Along with Surya, GM Sandipan Chanda (2613), GM Deep Sengupta (2540), IM Saptarshi Roy (2402), IM Diptayan Ghosh (2425), FM Sayantan Das (2312), IM Argyadip Das (2476) and WGM Mary Ann Gomes (2382) gave a silver lining to Bengal Brigade’s performance. WGM Nisha Mohta (2339) had to satisfy with just half point.
Only IM Suvrajit Saha lost the game for the second consecutive day. Today Suvrajit was beaten by Egyptian GM Ahmed Adly (2607).
Shardul Gagare continued with his exemplary performance albeit with a little bit of luck. From a lost middle game, the youngster turned the tables on Grandmaster Sahaj Grover.
13-year old Arvindh Chithabaram also did well to hold Indian GM Abhijit Kunte. it showed his mental maturity at this tender age. One can remember that in just concluded Indian Premier Chess tournament held at Khudiram Anushilan Kendra, this boy upset GM Dibyendu Barua in the very first round.
Expectedly, the axe has fallen on all the top seeds. Indian GM Deepan Chakkravarthy held top seed GM Radoslaw Wojtaszek of Poland. Given the huge difference in ratings, Deepan kept surviving a difficult position for a long time and finally gave perpetual check to force matters.
Ukrainian champion Anton Korobov made a short work of IM Akshayraj Kore. IM Narayanan Srinath, GM Paragua Mark, Shardul and Deepan joined them with 2.5 point each.
For the second consecutive day IM Aditya Udeshi (2376) remained a headache for the higher rated players. On Day-2 he made Moldavian GM Viorel Iordachescu (2619) to share point with him and in the third round Russian GM Daniil Linchevski failed to break the ice. N Srinath drew with Paragua Mark of Philippines.
The sole leader is Grandmaster Marat Dzhumaev of Uzbekistan. Dzhumaev accounted for Indian IM G A Stany. There is a wolf-pack of 16 players following the leader on 2.5 points each.
